CARROLLTON — Thanks to Bria Washington, Woodward Academy will play for the Class AAA championship of the Georgia High School Association girls soccer tournament.
Washington scored a goal and assisted on one by Lauren Culver on Tuesday at Grisham Stadium to lead the War Eagles past host Carrollton 3-0. The War Eagles, who were state champions in 2006, will host the finals Friday or Saturday, depending upon other results.
“We’ve moved [Washington] all over the place,” coach Tonia Webb said. “She’s been double-teamed, even triple-teamed a lot, so she’s used to playing with a lot of pressure. She held up and distributed the ball really well.”
The game previewed as Carrollton’s offense, which had scored 13 goals in its three tournament games, against Woodward Academy’s defense, which had allowed one goal.
Carrollton controlled possession for the majority of the opening 20 minutes of the first half, but created one legitimate scoring chance.
Webb said her team has showed its nerves in the tournament, and it showed early. They created several chances counter-attacking that they couldn’t capitalize on. But the War Eagles began to settle down and push their way up the wings in the final 20 minutes of the half. With less than two minutes remaining, Washington, the team’s most dangerous player in the first half, spun at the top of the box and laced a low line drive into the bottom left corner of the goal to give Woodward Academy a 1-0 lead.
“It was deflating,” Carrollton coach Drew Ebensberger said.
Instead of putting 10 players back and protecting its lead, Woodward Academy pressed to add another goal in the beginning of the second half before Carrollton could settle down. The Trojans survived and missed a chance to tie with 34 minutes remaining when Kate Fazio missed the goal with a shot from near the penalty spot.
The referee waved away a call for a handball a few minutes later that would have given Carrollton a chance to tie the game with a penalty kick.
Webb elected to let Culver drift forward from her spot at right midfield and drop Washington back into the center of the formation to try to take advantage of her ability to find open teammates. The breakthrough came when Washington found Culver with a through pass that split two defenders in Carrollton’s three-person back line. Culver ran onto it and scored to give the War Eagles a 2-0 lead.
Another Culver cross was knocked into the net by a Carrollton defender with eight minutes remaining for an unfortunate own-goal that sealed the Trojans’ fate.
“Woodward’s a solid team,” Ebensberger said. “They made it tough for us.”
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