Salado Lady Eagles advance to the area round of the UIL 4A Soccer playoffs after beating the Robinson Lady Rockets 3-0 on their own artificial turf tonight (March 25).
The girls scored on a corner kick with Haley Piatek kicking the corner kick and freshman Jillian Taylor heading the ball into the goal in the 16th minute of the match to go up 1-0.
Robinson threatened early in the match but Taylor Dabney made a save in the first two minutes of the match.
RObinson made three saves over the fifth and sixth minutes of the match and Dabney defended against a corner kick in the seventh minute of the match.
Dabney deflected a ball heading for the top of the goal with just four seconds left in the first period to keep Salado’s narrow 1-0 first half lead.
It didn’t take long (just under four minutes) to score in the second period. Maria Pauer took a pass from Lexi Rice and put it in the goal for a 2-0 lead.
Two minutes later, Salado looked to extend a lead byt a shot by Cassie Vargas doinked off of the upright of the goal and went horizontal. While Salado celebrated the apparant goal, the Robinson goalkeeper, senior Hayley Matus, was able to scramble off the ground and get the save.
Matus also got a save against Ashlyn Stouder 20 seconds later.
Dabney made two saves in the 50th minute of the match to keep Robinson scoreless, running up on one of them to slide in and take the ball away from a break-away Robinson player.
The Lady Eagles scored their final goal of the game in the 53rd minute of the match when Savvy Oyler passed the ball in traffic to Rice who scored the goal for the 3-0 lead.
Oyler passed Rice the ball again four minutes later but Rice’s shot went wide.
Maddy Schulz just missed a shot on goal at the 59th minute of the match.
Down the final 20 minutes, Robinson had four penalty kick opportunities, but the Lady Eagle defense was able to get in front of the ball every time in order to preserve the shut out.
Robinson threatened to score in the final three minutes but Salado was able to aggressively defend against a break-away player. The Lady Rockets fans screamed for a foul call 5 yards out from the goal, but to no avail and the Lady Eagles were able to ride out the final minutes.