BOGART, Ga. — Three goals late in Friday’s match helped the Social Circle Lady Redskins walk away with the Region 5A-Division I trophy. Social Circle downed Prince Avenue 3-1 to claim region supremacy for the second straight season.
Head coach Heather Richardson expressed what winning back-to-back region championships means to the Lady Redskins.
“It feels really good, especially since we’re in a different region,” Richardson said. “That’s been cool playing so many different teams and we were still able to come out on top.”
Social Circle trailed 1-0 for over 65 minutes of Friday’s action. Then, it finally found a goal in one of the most aggressive ways.
Peyton Brooks took a corner kick with 14:48 left in the match that Faith Young connected on with a header. Prince Avenue’s goalie blocked Young’s shot, but couldn’t recollect it.
Amid a scramble for the ball, Aubrey Spruell came up with it and hit the back of the net.
All of the Lady Redskins ran to Spruell in celebration of the score.
Richardson highlighted the way Social Circle scored was symbolic of how difficult it was to score against Prince Avenue’s defense.
“I think their team understood how good we are offensively,” Richardson said. “Anytime we got on their half of the field, there were a lot of their players. It was hard to get through and around them. It felt like we were clawing for a long time, but I’m glad we got this one.”
Spruell’s fifth goal of the season seemed to take the lid off the goal.
Less than four minutes later, Brooks netted the go ahead goal and, not too long after, Young connected on a long shot attempt to put the icing on the cake.
At one point during Social Circle’s scoreless stretch, Richardson said to her players, “it’s amazing what some energy can do.”
Richardson felt like her team response was key.
“That’s all it was — high energy,” Richardson said. “We were getting to the ball first, fighting for the ball and not waiting for [Prince Avenue] to give it to you. After we scored that first goal, that’s when we found our intensity.”
Social Circle accomplished more than winning the region, too, with Friday’s win. Now, they’ll enter the Class A-Division I playoffs as the No. 1 seed.
Richardson didn’t want that significance to be lost.
“[The players] knew what was at stake and what’s to come,” Richardson said. “This is the best thing that could happen for the seeding in the playoffs, that’s what we were really fighting for. Of course, we wanted to say, ‘Yay, we’re the region champs,’ but we were really fighting for the seeding in the playoffs.”
The Lady Redskins’ (10-4, 6-0) regular season has one week left. They’ll face Eastside on Tuesday and Putnam County next Thursday with both non-region matches being at home.
