SHS girls drop two shootouts, place fourth in Cup

By Scott Nulph snulph@stwnewspress.com

STILLWATER, Okla. — The Stillwater Lady Pioneers got a taste of just about everything during this weekend’s Stillwater Cup soccer tournament.

They were able to put up a bunch goals twice in big victories, and they were in two matches that went down the wire — and beyond.

The only thing missing on Saturday for the Lady Pioneers was the penalty kicks.

Stillwater went 1-2 on Saturday in the final day of the Stillwater Cup, with both losses decided on penalty kicks. The Lady Pioneers (4-3) lost to Sand Springs early Saturday on penalty kicks before beating Enid 6-0.

That left SHS playing for third place Saturday night against the Tulsa Union JV. After a scoreless tie, Stillwater again went to penalty kicks and came up short again, falling 1-0.

“We had two shootouts and we lost them both by the barest of margins,” SHS girls coach John Fields said. “That second one we lost (to Union JV), it was shooters. Our goalie (Emily Gallaway) did everything that she was supposed to do. She got as large as she could and made a couple of big saves. We just couldn’t find the net.”

As it was the entire tournament, Saturday’s third-place match was played with a steady southerly wind at 25-30 miles per hour.

But the interesting thing is that neither Stillwater nor Tulsa Union really took advantage of the wind when they were playing with it.

Union outshot Stillwater 7-2 in the first half with the wind but had no outstanding scoring chances. In fact, Stillwater’s Kirsty Baze had the best scoring chance of the first half with a shot from about 20 yards out that just slid wide the goal with 8 minutes left in the half.

With the Lady Pioneers owning the wind in the second half, SHS outshot Union 8-5, but again no real scoring chances occurred for either team.

“Neither team really did anything when they had the wind,” Fields said. “It was strange weather conditions. The wind would blow one way then seemed to change for a little bit. Neither team seemed to have a real advantage.”

Tournament rules had the teams go right to a shootout after regulation ended with no score.

Union held a 2-1 lead after two kicks, but Gallaway made back-to-back saves and Stillwater evened the shootout at 2-2 heading into the fifth kick. After SHS missed wide, Union ended the match with a shot in the upper right corner.

The Lady Pioneers will now prepare for district play, which starts with a home match on Friday against Enid.

“For us, the preseason and this tournament are ways for me to look at players and know what we need to be doing a little bit better going into the regular season going in district play,” Fields said. “The first couple of games we played a lot of girls and this last game we played fewer girls and I started to see some combinations I liked. We learned a lot about what we needed to improve before districts.

“We would have loved to win this game and get a trophy but we’re getting ready for district play. That’s what this weekend was all about.”

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