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Lady Eagles fall in final minute
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The Eastside Lady Eagles (5-4, 2-2 4-AAAA) lost an important 4-AAAA match to the Griffin Lady Bears (8-2-1, 4-1) in the final minute Tuesday night at Homer Sharp Stadium.

Fresh off an 8-0 thrashing of Monticello High Monday night in Monticello, Eastside dominated the first half of play except for a three minute spurt by the Lady Bears that saw Griffin take a 1-0 lead on a hard struck shot by Emily Bersill in the ninth minute of play that Eastside keeper Jordyn Blare got a hand on but was unable to gather in.

Eastside knotted the game on a ball from Alli Coberth to Allie Dumaine that Dumaine put in the net midway through the half. The score remained 1-1 at the half.

Dumaine scored her team-leading ninth goal of the season, and second of the game, off a double assist play that began with Morgan Green sending a long ball down the left side to Madison Morvik who carried the ball deep into Griffin territory before crossing it into the six-yard box to the charging Dumaine who one-touched the ball in to make it 2-1 Eastside with 28:09 left in the match.

The Lady Bears had three good opportunities over the next 10 minutes but came up empty. Griffin's Madison Weems missed to the left on a breakaway followed by two saves by Eastside keeper Blare, one on an impressive 55-yard set piece attempt.

With 14:23 left, Weems sliced through the Lady Eagles defense to tie the game at 2-2 on a breakaway down the middle.

With about 11 minutes remaining, Eastside was dealt a major blow when their center-midfielder was sent off with a red card, forcing the Lady Eagles to play a player down for the rest of the game.

Eastside's Haley Walden bent a corner kick in with 1:35 to play but her effort was punched away by the Lady Bear's keeper. In the final minute, Griffin had a two player breakaway. Blare deflected the Lady Bear's first attempt from close range, but was unable to gather the ball in and Weems knocked the loose ball in for the game-winner with 51.4 seconds remaining.

The loss drops the Lady Eagles to 2-2 in 4-AAAA, currently good for fifth in the 12 team region while Griffin is fourth at 4-1.

In the boys game, Tyreke Francis broke a scoreless tie to give Eastside (5-3, 3-1 4-AAAA) a 1-0 lead over Griffin (1-7, 1-4) in the 15th minute. The game remained close until eight minutes remained in the half.

Eastside exploded for three goals in three minutes to take a 4-0 lead. The three goals were notched by Tyreke Francis, Will Gregory and Terrell Francis. Tyreke Francis would complete his hat trick with a third goal in the first five minutes of the 2nd half.

The match was stopped with 10:40 left. With the 5-0 victory. Eastside is currently tied for third in 4-AAAA at 3-1.

Eastside will play at Spalding in Griffin on Friday. The girls play at 6 p.m. and the boys at 8 p.m. The Spalding boys are 8-1 and ranked No. 7 in the state while the Spalding girls are 6-1-2 and ranked No. 8 in the state.