James Wood girls can't rebound from Tuscarora's fast start

WINCHESTER — The James Wood girls’ soccer team was looking to keep a historic season rolling as it hosted Tuscarora on Friday night at Kelican Stadium.

Unfortunately for the Colonels, the Huskies had other ideas.

Tuscarora scored twice in the first five minutes and held on for a 3-1 triumph in the Region 4C championship game.

The Colonels (17-3), who had advanced to state tournament play for the first time in program history with a 2-1 double overtime win over Broad Run in the semifinals, will now travel to Region 4D champion Western Albemarle on Tuesday in the Class 4 quarterfinals for a 7:30 p.m game. Tuscarora (17-2-1) will host Region 4D runner-up Blacksburg.

The Huskies took the opening kick, worked the ball down field with five crisp passes and Lauren Mattingley got behind the Wood defense and slipped a shot into the lower corner for a 1-0 lead just 23 seconds into the contest.

About four-and-a-half minutes later, Mia Serna received a throw-in, made a couple of quick dribbles, spun and lofted a high shot towards the net that just got over the outstretched hands of James Wood keeper Jes Taylor for a 2-0 lead with 35 minutes still showing on the clock.

“They stung us early there,” said James Wood coach Donavan Russell. “We still bounced back and played the way we wanted to play so I was really happy with that. We poured our hearts and souls and left everything we had on the field in Tuesday’s game and it took us a little while to get moving but I’m real happy.”

Before the Colonels had any really scoring chances, the Huskies found the back of the net one more time. On what looked like a basketball fast break, Serna took a long, over the top pass, got past the last line of the James Wood defense and scored her second goal of the first half with 23:22 left.

For the last 20 minutes of the first half and the entire second half the James Wood defense found another gear and almost completely shut down the Huskies’ offense, limiting the scoring chances and shots on goal.

James Wood’s best scoring chance in the first half came with just over two minutes left. A beautiful corner kick was curled right in front of the Huskies net, but the Colonels were unable to gain control or get any shots off. They found themselves down 3-0 at the half.

“We let an early goal go in which is unusual for us,” Russell said. “They are fast at the top, which we knew but the last half of the first half we had a lot of chances. We had the ball in their half a lot.”

With the defense now seemingly locked in, James Wood needed to find some second-half offense to get back into the contest.

The Colonels got exactly what they needed to start. Just 3:29 into the half, James Wood was awarded a penalty kick and junior McKenna Newcome buried it into the lower left hand corner to get the Colonels on the board and draw them to within 3-1.

A little more than 11 minutes later, the Colonels almost cashed in a beautiful corner kick. Once again the kick was laid perfectly in front of the net and it looked like Jolie Jenkins’ header was going in until Tuscarora keeper Natalie Tikalsky reached out with her left hand and knocked it down.

James Wood’s last good opportunity came in the last two minutes of the game when Jenkins got loose on a breakaway, was beyond the last defender and fired a shot that hit the crossbar and bounced away.

“Our second half was good, they did what we asked them to do,” Russell said. “I mean Tusky’s a good team, they’ve got good players on it. [They were] state runner-up last year so it’s really nothing to hang our heads about. We hung on.”

James Wood had its five-game winning streak snapped.

“I’m happy with what we did,” Russell said. “We didn’t capitalize on all of our chances, but we got some really good looks and their keeper made some really good saves. I don’t think we played an awful game. They got the early goals and it was a deficit that was tough to overcome.”