Perfect at home, CCS girls keep adding firsts in ’22
A come-from-behind 2-1 win versus rival Christian Academy of Knoxville in the Division II-A East Region third-place game allowed the Lady Lions, 12-3-1, to finish their home slate unbeaten at 8-0.
This Thursday, Oct. 13, victory builds on CCS’s first winning season dating back to the program’s start in 2016.
Senior team captains Jacey Kate Jennings, a forward, and midfielder Jalen Spiller stepped up with second-half goals, as the Lady Lions kept possession on their offensive end for much of the match’s final 40 minutes.
Down 1-0 at the half after a nice spinning goal from CAK sophomore Caroline Schmid, “We came out kind of timid, not playing the way we normally play,” Spiller said. “At halftime, the coaches got onto us about how we weren’t playing well, and a couple of things we needed to fix.
“And we came out in the second half and fixed those things,” she added.
“Concord really picked up their intensity in the second half,” CAK head coach Ried Estus said.
“Our team definitely played a much better second half,” CCS head coach Jason Jennings said. “... We talked about winning the 50-50 balls, and that helped us keep possession.
“We have seven seniors on our team that have (led) this year, an historic season,” he added.
Explaining this season’s turnaround, “I feel like one thing is, we’re very close. ... We’re just kind of all one family,” Jacey Kate Jennings said. “And we’re an older team, we have a lot of seniors.
“We have confidence now,” she added about the seniors, noting they were among “nine starting freshmen” in 2019.
“We never won double-digit games” before 2022, said the elder Jennings, in his third season as CCS head coach. “... It’s the first time we’ve ever been in the region.”
Other key seniors are center-backs Ellie Gleason and Maddie Starkey, right-back Brooke Strong and midfielders Raleigh Jack Walker and Brielle Hendren.
In addition, “We have some good freshmen coming up,” the CCS head coach said.
In a 3-0 region tourney win against Notre Dame, Lady Lion freshman Annie Von Hagen, a forward, scored all three goals. In fact, Von Hagen leads Concord in goals this season with 14, followed by Jennings with 12 and Spiller adding 11.
Jennings and freshman Delaney Jane Walker led the team in season assists with five each. Spiller has contributed four.
Goalkeepers Olivia Heatherly, a sophomore, and freshman Lydia Reyes have combined for nine shutouts.
As for CAK, “We had a much better work rate today than we did the last time we came over here (a regular season loss),” Estus said. “But we created too many scoring chances to come out of the first half only up 1-0.”
