R.E. Lee holds off Cougars in finals

By Doug Layman Correspondent
Published: May 20, 2008

STAUNTON — From zero to hero.
Four years ago, the Robert E. Lee girls soccer team suffered through a winless season. Yesterday, the squad claimed the Southern Valley District championship with a 3-1 win over rival Stuarts Draft at the Montgomery Hall Park soccer complex.
“This is exciting,” Lee coach Andrew Green said. “I am happy for my seniors — both of them — who have been through the hard times: a no-win season, a one-win season and last year we were barely a .500 team.”
But the road to victory was not a smooth one.
Lee (13-3-1) had to overcome a lethargic first half, which saw the Cougars outplay their hosts for most of the period.
“We played good through the whole game,” Draft coach Danielle Christian said. “My kids were sharp and were on their game tonight.”
Girls on both sides of the pitch donned armbands in memory of long-time travel-team coach Glenn Anderson, who died suddenly Tuesday morning.
“We were mentally challenged with all that happened this morning,” Christian said. “Given a different set of circumstances, things may have ended differently.”
The teams played to a 1-1 tie after the first 40 minutes as Bekah Martin drew first blood for the Cougars in the first two minutes and Lee senior Alex Hersch drilled a MaryAnna Doyle pass beyond the arms of Draft keeper Sarah Surratt in the sixth minute.
“[Draft] really dominated us in the first half,” Green said. “After our first score, we just sat back and waited for the game to come to us. We’ve had two tight games with them and we just expected them to hand us the game.”
The two regular season meetings between the squads were both one-point affairs and one match went into overtime.
“I really got on my players at halftime,” Green said. “But they needed it. They needed a wake-up call.”
That lecture must have hit its intended mark as Lee’s Hersch and Taylor Butler responded with early second-half goals, each assisting the other.
“Coach said that Stuarts Draft owned us in the first half and we just had to get [things] back together,” Hersch said.
The senior rallied the team with two goals and an assist.
“Coach said that we weren’t stepping to the ball and that we weren’t winning any balls,” she said. “Once we started to go aggressively after them, we played much better.”
The Hersch-Butler tandem put the stops on any Draft notion of an upset.
Hersch centered perfectly to Butler, who drilled a point-blank shot past Surratt at the 45th minute to break the tie, and Butler hit Hersch just right of the net and the senior poked it in from 10 yards out about 13 minutes later.
“We work pretty well together,” Butler said. “We were pretty aggressive tonight and the way Alex plays has set a good example for the team.”
Lee’s defense responded to the call as freshman keeper Kaitlyn Campbell delivered six saves, including a short penalty kick in the final seconds of the match.
On the other side of the pitch, Cougar sophomore Sarah Surratt pulled out 15 saves, cementing her all-district status.
“Draft has come so far since last year,” Green said. “They really deserved to be [playing] in this game. They gave us everything we could handle.”
On Monday, Lee will host the winner of today’s Spotswood-Turner Ashby matchup in the Massanutten District tournament finals while Stuarts Draft will travel to Broadway as both move on to Region III action.