Prep soccer: Bengals hold off Trojans, capture Piedmont crown

RIDGEWAY — Tunstall coach Marc Parrish and Bassett coach Lindsay Favero had the same game plan for Friday’s special playoff to determine the regular season champion of the Piedmont District: score early and force the other team to play catch-up.

The plan worked for Bassett, as the Bengals scored both its goals in the first two minutes of each half and held on to defeat the Trojans 2-1 at Magna Vista High School.

Bassett (10-2-2, 8-1 Piedmont) gets the No. 1 seed in the Piedmont District tournament, which begins Monday. Bassett will play the winner of the Martinsville-Magna Vista game Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at Bassett. The Bengals also secured a first-round home game in the Region IV tournament.

Tunstall (9-5, 7-2 Piedmont) is the No. 2 seed for the Piedmont District tournament and will play No. 3 Patrick County on Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Bassett.

“Those are killers too,” Parrish said of those two goals. “We were afraid the weather was going to be a factor, so our plan was to try to get on them first and get a couple of goals in case we had to stop this thing at halftime. Evidently, they had the same game plan and caught us just a little bit flatfooted.”

Deidra Carter struck first for Bassett, sliding through the Tunstall defense and finding the net at the 1:50 mark of the first half.

Bassett again struck early in the second half when Julia Teague collected the ball in the middle of the goalie box and was able to squeeze her shot past Tusntall’s Lauren Elliott to give the Bengals a 2-0 lead.

“It’s every team’s plan in the history of soccer to finish quickly in the first couple minutes of each half,” Favero said. “I knew going into it that they had the same goal that we had — to get ahead early and try to hang on to the lead. Tunstall’s a dangerous team and you couldn’t take (them) for granted.”

The Trojans responded two minutes after Teague’s goal when Courtney Mustain sent a pass into the goalie box that Maggie MacLeish sent past Bassett’s Lynn Murphy to bring the score to 2-1.

Murphy made six saves in goal and several of those came in the second half when the Trojans had opportunities to tie the game.

Elliott stopped 10 of the Bengals’ 12 shots on goal, including several superb stops in the first half that kept Tunstall within striking distance.

Tunstall and Bassett split the regular season meetings as both teams each won at home.

“We got back in it and that was good,” Parrish said. “We just wanted to come in here and play our ‘A’ game. The second time we played them, we did not. I thought we played much better today.”