A year ago at McPherson High School, the Great Bend High School girls’ soccer team lost 7-0.
While Great Bend still lost 2-0, dropping its record to 5-8-2 on the season, the two Lady Bullpups goals came on penalty kicks after fouls were called inside the goalie’s box.
McPherson, which scored once in the first half and once in the second half, advances to 11-4 this season.
“My players are great players,” Great Bend head coach Gus Prieto said. “They like to fight for the ball. They ready to play 80 minutes every game. You get disappointed because I know we had a chance to win this game, especially here at home.
“Two (penalty kicks). The first one, I don’t know if it was a penalty kick or not. I’m sure it wasn’t. Sometimes it’s hard (for the ref), I understand that. But you call a P.K. and that changes the game. We start having to do something different, there is a little disappointment, and it just makes it hard.”
Excluding the two penalty kicks, GBHS goalkeeper Stephanie Lomas did a good job deflecting McPherson’s shots on goals, according to Prieto, getting five saves.
“She’s really good with her hands,” Prieto said of Great Bend goalie. “She’s in good position to make plays, and she’s getting better. I think she’s playing good. She’s ready all of the time. The defense is better organized. They are playing better now. You see the penalty kicks, she has nothing to do with that. She’s seen maybe three or four this whole season.”
In the first half, the two teams played against winds up to 30 mph. The Lady Panthers were only able to get one shot off when Jennifer Allende struck a header off target to the right side of the goal.
“In the first half, we played against the wind, and for the first 10 or 15 minutes, they kept the ball in our side,” Prieto said. “After that, we controlled the ball a little more and we some chances to score.”
Between the two halves, Great Bend was only able to get three shots off with none of them being on goal. Prieto said that it was McPherson’s defense that should be credited.
“(McPherson) had five or six different players (in the box) sometimes,” Prieto said. “They have good spirit. They have a good team. They have the skills, and we were able to control the ball here at the midfield.
“We controlled almost all of the balls probably 80 percent of the second half, but it was hard to pass the defenders. They have five or six all the time.”
Throughout the game, it was the foul calls that really hung up the Lady Panthers, who finished with more yellow cards (5) than shots, including a red card handed to defender Isela Ochoa midway through the second half.
The red card forced Great Bend to finish the game down one player.
“It is really hard for my team, for my players when they see this ref because they cannot talk,” Prieto said of the yellow cards in the game. “They cannot push. They cannot do anything because they are going to receive a yellow card.
“When you are on the field and you feel like you can’t attack. You feel like you can’t go 100 percent because they are too scared to get the yellow card.”
The Lady Panthers finish their regular season on the road on Thursday in Junction City.