No. 1 Chattahoochee at No. 2 Roswell | Georgia high school soccer
The top two teams in state, No. 1 Chattahoochee and No. 2 Roswell, close out the regular season tonight on the Hornets’ pitch.
It’s a non-region game, and both teams already have locked up top seeds in the state tournament. But there is some buzz about the showdown between a pair of Fulton County upstarts.
“When we scheduled each other, we had no idea that either of us were going to be this good,” Chattahoochee coach Les Meenan said. “It’s been a pleasant surprise, and it’s a good benchmark for what we’re going to run into in the playoffs.”
Chattahoochee ended last season on a five-game winning streak, but still missed out on the playoffs. After last season’s finale, Meenan had a heart-to-heart talk with his team on the field. The next day he received a text message from captain Shane Burke.
“We’re going to make the playoffs,” the text read.
The text messages kept coming.
“From then, every day I got a message, ‘We’re going to make the playoffs,' It was almost annoying," Meenan said with a chuckle. “And now he’s always saying, ‘I told you. I told you we were going to make the playoffs.’”
Burke was right. The Cougars enter tonight’s game at 16-0.
Roswell also has been a surprise, bouncing back from last season’s 4-13-1 campaign to win Region 5-AAAAAA under first-year coach Will Roney.
“I think it’s OK that there’s a sense of magnitude for the [Chattahoochee] game,” Roney said. “You don’t get to play a team with a skill level of Chattahoochee all the time. It’s a great pre-cursor to the state tournament, but in the end, win or lose, it’s not going to affect anything in regards to the state tournament.”
