At the end of last season, the Republic Lady Tigers lost 80% of the scoring in program history to graduation. They’ve responded by scoring more goals than ever before.
Thursday night, in a 9-0 rout of Monett on the road, the Lady Tigers wrapped their regular season with 84 total goals–two more than the previous single-season record. They also finished the regular season with a school-record 12 shutouts–two more than ever before.
“I thought we were going to be good to get to 40 goals,” says Mike Hines. “It’s just a testament to the girls because they work so well together. When you don’t rely on one or two, and everyone gets moving forward and everyone gets involved, we’ve had a lot of different people score goals.”
Thursday was the same old story for the well-rounded Lady Tigers, with five different players scoring goals. Lesleigh Fenton got things rolling at the 20 minute mark of the first half, then fed Jocelyn Carpenter for the second goal of the night. Carpenter scored again on a penalty kick, and a third time into the bottom corner of the net with 5:01 left in the first half.
Emily Jordan scored the niftiest goal of the night in the final minute of the half. She tapped the ball to the inside, bolted around the defender to the outside, caught up to the ball and put it in the back of the net to make the score 5-0.
In the second half, Jessica Laster scored her first goal of the season on a penalty kick at the 30:47 mark. Lauryl Hyde scored about three minutes later on an assist from Savannah Wright inside the five yard line. Emily Jordan booted the ball home from 25 yards out for her second goal of the night to make it 8-0. And Wright finished off the scoring with a goal of her own, tucking the ball into the lower right corner beyond the keeper’s reach.
The Lady Tigers finish the regular season at 17-5, their best record ever. They’ll try to improve on that next week when district play begins at Branson. Republic plays Springfield Hillcrest at 7 pm May 18. The winner will meet the Willard/Branson winner in the district championship on May 20.