Knowing the standard that is Glynn Academy soccer, both the Lady Terrors and Terrors put their process out in full force.
For both sides, it wasn’t the prettiest start at moments.
Opening the night against the Lady Yellow Jackets of Wayne County, the Lady Terrors stayed in the final third of the opposition, constantly pressing and getting to second balls.
Taking five minutes to score the first goal of the game, Capers Childs delivered a cross from the right wing to the back post for an easy header for Eliza Meader to open the 2023 campaign.
“Eliza and Capers play on the same travel team together so they have good chemistry, and they run and read each other very well,” said head coach Thomas Lemmon. “Anastasia Barr is our little engine in there and we have a freshman that is starting in there for us (Jenny Bors), she’s doing well but it’s the first game in high school, and trying to get the feel of everything.”
Delivering passes on the counter-attack with through balls over over-the-top balls, the one thing that hurt Glynn Academy for the majority of the game was being offside.
“Yeah, it’s about the girls getting the timing,” Lemmon said about being called offside. “They are used to running north and south which playing against a team like Wayne where they play a high line and the offsides (trap) if you run north and south you are going to get called offsides as we did. The more experienced players run along the line and have more diagonal runs that keeps us onsides. That is one of the big things we are going to work on at practice.”
Continuing to push the backline of Wayne County, Glynn Academy scored three more goals in the first half with Barr getting an easy tap-in goal and Meader earning a hat-trick.
Leading 4-0, Glynn Academy didn’t let up in the slightest in the second half.
Less than three minutes into the second half, Childs had a one-on-one with the keeper and chipped the keeper for the fifth goal of the game.
Adding the sixth goal Childs received a through ball on a counter-attack, the junior slotted home her shot to continue giving fits for a Yellow-Jacket team that looked defeated.
Never letting off the attacking process that the team has been known for, the Lady terrors added two goals in less than a minute with Izzy Myer receiving a perfect ball in the six-yard box from Childs for the first goal. Getting the ball back on the ensuing kickoff, Meader’s won a free-kick just outside the box and without hesitation sent her strike to the top of the frame of the goal for the eighth goal of the game.
Joining in on the fun, Kennedy Flores might have one-upped her teammate with her right-footed shot that went right under the crossbar and into the top of the net for the ninth goal.
Making substitutions to give reserves some minutes, Wayne County grabbed a goal against a young Terrors group.
Coach Lemmon sent Meader back out to help move the ball, where she would add her fifth goal of the game to seal a 10-1 win for the team.
“We have a lot of work to do,” Lemmon said of the win. “The score doesn’t show what we need to work on. We are young, so we have some players that are still trying to get their feet under them and get used to our style of play. We will take the win but just positioning and runs. We were called for offsides like 35 times which is unlike us but it’s new players and learning systems.
Glynn Academy boys 7
Wayne County 0
Following in the footsteps of the Lady Terrors, it took the boys team a little longer than coach Bobby Brockman wanted to set the tone of the match.
Gaining possession, the team struggled to move the ball up the pitch with Brockman telling his team to make simple passes.
Facing an early defensive blunder, Wayne County struck on an errant pass between Keller Lopez Orellana and goalie Durham Daniel as the ball loose around the penalty box. As the Terrors’ backline swarmed to the ball with Durham out of the net, the team was able to get out of a scary moment.
The moment the game completely switched into the favor of Glynn Academy was midway through the first half when Oliver Van Boxel had a breakaway with only one defender to beat. Being pulled back by the last defender just outside the box, the Yellow Jackets were given a straight red and forced to play with 10 men for the remaining 60 minutes.
“I thought we started getting better before the red, but we can’t wait almost 20 minutes to get our act together, especially in this region,” Brockman said. “You will be down pretty quick if you don’t play 80 minutes. The red card obviously opened things up for us because you are playing 11 on 10 and they can’t replace the guy.”
From then on, it was all Glynn Academy as they grabbed three first-half goals from the likes of Luke O’Connor, Jonas Coyle, and Jack Roberts.
Leading 3-0 and knowing they had the advantage of being a man up, Brockman wanted to see his team add more goals in quick succession.
“It was 3-0 at the half and our goal was to score three more in 20 minutes and we did that so we can play some other players the last 20 minutes,” Brockman said. “Real happy with the guys as far as we did score some really nice goals and had some other chances that we have to be little more clinical on, but overall it was nice to be able to play the small army of players that I have.”
Scoring another three goals as Roberts and Harrison Lee grabbed a brace each, Glynn kept its focus on the game, not the opposing side’s trash talk.
Adding one more goal for good measure it was only fair to see Van Boxel see his shot go into the net after giving his team the man advantage.
Glynn Academy jumps right into Region 2-6A play as they host Lakeside Evans on Friday.