On Thursday evening, the Nixa Lady Eagles kept Jamie Brassfield (pictured – click on the picture to see all the photos from the Varsity and JV games. The pictures were taken by Randy Hunt) busy. In defeating the Lady Zizzers 4-0, Nixa outshot West Plains 21(14 On Goal) to 4 (2 On Goal). Nixa put plenty of pressure on the Lady Zizzer defense. The defense bent , but held strong until the 39th minute of the game when Jo Pavlowsky picked up a failed clearance attempt and put the ball into the far upper corner of the goal. Nixa 1, West Plains 0. That’s how the first half would end.
In the second half, West Plains came out a little more aggressively and started challenging more balls in the air. However the Lady Eagles were able to break through West Plains Defense in the 44th minute and Stephanie Allen was able to find the back of the net for a 2-0 Nixa lead. The Lady Zizzers didn’t give up. The effort level seemed to rise and both teams battled hard. Although West Plains was able to move the ball at times, Nixa limited the scoring opportunities for the Zizzers as Senior Defender Ashley Kirkpatrick, gobbled up most everything that came her way.
In the 68th minute, Nixa took a corner kick that went into the 18 yard box and settled on the ground. Nixa’s Jacklyn Finley came through and blasted a shot in from 10 yards out. Nixa 3, West Plains 0. Two minutes later Senior jessie Yach finished the scoring with a well placed ball to Jamie Brassfield’s left. Up to that point, the girls (Mollie Plocher, Beth Kittle, and Katie Shannon and others that helped when needed) had done a good job of defending the Lady Eagles top offensive threat. Despite the score, the Lady Zizzers continued to challenge as Katie Shannon, Michelle Esterle, and Rachel Skelly pushed forward on several occassions, but they couldn’t cut into the Lady Eagles lead.
The girls took some positive steps in the game against Nixa. We can keep our heads up and take some positives into tomorrows practice and then into Saturday’s match with the Harrison Lady Goblins. Nixa improves to 2-1 on the season while West Plains drops to 1-2.
In JV action, Nixa won 3-1 . West Plains got on the board first in the 13th minute when Freshman Amy Armstrong took the ball in, beating 2 defenders and then feeding the ball to Megan Lowe a goal and a 1-0 West Plains lead. Nixa would battle back to tie the game in the 29th minute off a nicely played free kick. In the 39th minute, Nixa pulled ahead 2-1 after beating the Lady Zizzer defense. In the 56th minute, Nixa stretched their lead to 3-1 as they again broke down the West Plains defense.
The JV will be back in action again on Monday when the JV and Varsity travel to Springfield to take on the Greenwood Lady Bluejays in what I believe is the first game in their programs history.