Fayetteville squeaks by Rogers Heritage

SPRINGDALE -- Fayetteville had a relative easy time with Rogers Heritage in two 7A-West Conference regular season girls' soccer matches.

The Lady War Eagles were determined to make Fayetteville earn a victory in Friday's Class 7A state tournament rematch.

With Heritage amped up and up the challenge of playing a physical brand of soccer, Fayetteville settled in with an early lead and then just held on to earn a 1-0 victory over the Lady War Eagles at Wildcat Stadium.

"This was 7A-West playoff soccer," Fayetteville Coach Joe Thoma said. "Rogers Heritage was ready to play and they played well.

"We told our girls all week, just get through the first game. We maybe should have been saying, play better in the first game."

Macy Watson put the Lady Bulldogs on the scoreboard with a floating shot from more than 20 yards yard, with 28: 36 left in the first half. When the two teams played in the past, a goal would have set off a scoring spree.

Instead, Heritage (17-13) buckled down.

"What more can you ask for," Heritage Coach Craig Frank said. "We go to double overtime [Thursday] and come back and give it everything we've got.

"We're one player down for a lot of match and it didn't change a thing. We did everything we could except score a goal."

Watson's goal was an attempt went just past the outstretched arms of Heritage's Micayla Fought that hit high in the goal for Fayetteville's 1-0 lead. Fayetteville caught a break when Heritage's Amy Perez was called for a red card and forced to sit out most of the second half. But the Lady War Eagles hung tough and never allowed Fayetteville to build on it lead.

"Just one rainbow shot that got in there," Frank said. "That was the difference."

The Lady Bulldogs (16-3-1) had other scoring chances but also gave up little on defense.

"I think some of the nature of the game is sometimes when you get that 1-0 lead, you treat it like, hey let's lot be crazy and let's keep numbers behind the ball," Thoma said. "And we did a really good job of not doing anything silly to get us in a bad position."

Fayetteville, the 7A-West Conference No. 1 seed, advances to play Cabot, the top seed from the 7A-East, at noon today in the Class 7A semifinals.

"We told our girls, if Cabot was watching this game today they're probably thinking they can't wait to play Fayetteville," Thoma said. "But you never know. It's a new day and everyone wants to get to the state finals.

"We might come out against Cabot and it could be another game just like this one."

Bryant 3, Springdale Har-Ber 1

Bryant scored three goals in the first half to top Har-Ber, the host school.

It was a good showing by the defending state champions, who will face Bentonville today in a semifinal match at 10 a.m.

Anna Lowery got Bryant (20-0-1) going with a goal less than two minutes into the match. Britney Sahlmann then scored off a header with 27:14 left before Caroline Campbell put Bryant ahead 3-0 with 13:09 remaining before halftime.

Alyssa Rocco cut the deficit to 3-1 but Har-Ber (8-8) could not penetrate the Bryant goal in the second half.

Bentonville 7, Fort Smith Southside 1

Melanie Matkins scored three goals in the first half to power Bentonville past Southside.

Matkins scored her first goal after a good pass from Alyssa Carlson. Matkins then side-stepped the Southside goalie and tapped the ball into the net to give Bentonville a 2-0 lead. Matkins scored again on a power kick from about 25 yards out then added a third goal before the half to put Bentonville ahead 4-0.

Bentonville (18-4-1) added three more goals in the second half while Southside (11-11) scored with 27:08 left to avoid the shutout.

Cabot 3, Fort Smith Northside 0

Tristyn Edgar scored two first-half goals in a seven-minute span for the Lady Panthers (19-4) and Fort Smith Northside (12-9) could never counter with a serious threat as Cabot advanced to today's Class 7A semifinals.

Edgar's goals were her 31st and 32nd of the season.

Cabot added a third score after intermission.

Sports on 05/14/2016