RC Girls Drop Three

Shorthanded Soccer Team Suffers Shutouts

The Rockbridge County High School girls soccer team couldn’t overcome several key injuries in a trio of Valley District matches last week, losing twice in as many nights to Turner Ashby and dropping a road decision to William Monroe.

The 5-0 and 4-0 defeats against the Knights and the 6-0 setback against the Dragons moved the Wildcats’ record to 5-8-0 overall and 4-6-0 in district play.

Last Wednesday, TA (9-3-1 overall, 7-2-1 district) beat RC 4-0 in Lexington. Sophia Perlozzo made 14 saves for the Wildcats, while Lily Kratz scored a pair of second-half goals for the Knights.

Aubrey Eberly’s corner kick deflected in off of Perlozzo in the ninth minute to give TA an early lead. But that would do it for the first-half scoring, with the Wildcat goalkeeper registering seven saves before the intermission to keep her team in the game.

RC’s best chance of the night came five minutes before the break, when Lydia Kendall’s long free kick produced one of TA goalie Laurel Armstrong’s four saves.

The ’Cats took the field Wednesday without several key players. Senior forward Sophie Vaught has missed several games, and RC was also missing senior defender Nellie Orrison and two other key offensive weapons: junior Madelyn Jones and freshman Lucy Boller-Pinkham.

The Wildcats called up junior varsity players Cora Conway, Briana Itehua-Lopez, Karla Macedo and Dahlia Obediat just to fill out the roster, and that group saw significant action in the match.

“Tonight provided the opportunity to see what we have presently, as well as what’s coming up in the future,” RC head coach Danny Wheeler said. “Our ladies who stepped up from the JV squad… played outstanding. We couldn’t ask more of them.”

Sofia Garber made it 2-0 less than three minutes after halftime, firing in a rebound after an initial TA header from a corner kick was cleared off the line by an RC defender.

Perlozzo made seven more stops in the second stanza, including a brilliant save on Alana May’s point-blank header in the 50th minute and a fingertip parry on Belinda Campos’ deflected shot three minutes later.

“You look at the number of saves she had, as well as the kicks that she had to defend – she did an outstanding job,” Wheeler said of Perlozzo. “It was just a superior athletic display of her abilities, as well as her knowledge of the goal.”

But eventually, the sheer volume of scoring chances – the Knights outshot RC 36-4 – paid dividends. Kratz notched her first goal in the 55th minute, delivering a tidy finish from 15 yards out on a feed from Campos, and she slotted home from close range with just seconds remaining to provide the final margin.

Last Tuesday, RC fell 5-0 on the road to TA, despite 13 saves from Perlozzo. In a 6-0 road loss to Valley leader William Monroe (13-1-0, 10-0-0) on Friday, the Wildcat keeper made 10 stops.

Despite the tough results, the Wildcats are still in the running for a Region 3C playoff berth. A less depleted roster had been performing well – RC had won five of its previous six games prior to last week – and Wheeler hopes the ’Cats can remain competitive as they get closer to full strength.

“The team continues to work well together,” the RC coach said. “We look forward to our players coming back, as well as working with those young ladies who have stepped up to help us out.”

The Wildcats were scheduled to face Broadway at home last night. The Wildcats visit East Rockingham on Thursday, beginning with junior varsity action at 5:30 p.m., and they will play host to Staunton in the regular-season finale, with the varsity game only at 6 p.m. on Friday.