CAMDEN — The Preble Shawnee girls soccer team came back from a 3-1 deficit to earn a 3-3 tie with Milton-Union on Thursday, Oct. 13.
The final game of the season was a night of special accomplishments. With the tie, Shawnee finsihed the regular season with a 12-2-2, mark, which is the second best season in school history.
In addition, junior forward Saylor Jewell has now scored in every game this season and holds the season’s goal-scoring record at Shawnee with 27 goals scored.
During pre-game festivities, Preble Shawnee honored its six seniors: Sam Hodge, Mackenzie Howard, Riane Woodard, Hope Ballinger, Annilou Belvo, and Brooke Kiracofe.
In the first 15 minutes, Milton scored twice on two shots. Preble Shawnee answered back at the 19:42 mark with a corner kick to make the score 2-1.
Before halftime, the score was 3-1, as M-U added its third and final goal of the game with 3:51 remaining in the half.
“99.9 percent of the time, if we are down by two goals at half, I am furious and ready to explode, but I didn’t get that at all,” said Shawnee coach Kevin Schaeffer. “The focus at halftime was to contain better when a Milton girl had the ball, step up a bit harder on 50-50 balls, but most importantly, continue doing what we were doing.
“We controlled most of the game in half one. Our attack was varied — we played quickly forward, played out wide, played negatively, built with numbers,” Schaeffer added. “The only issue was that we weren’t really being creative enough in front of the goal. So, by half’s end, it was 3-1 and Milton had a total of four shots. We had many more shots than they did.”
In half two, the Lady Arrows played considerably better, according to Schaeffer. Shawnee earned two penalty kicks in the last 15 minutes of the game, which the Lady Arrows converted into goals. Both goals came from Jewell.
The tie game allowed Preble Shawnee a second place finish in the Buckeye Division of the Southwestern Buckeye League, with a 7-2-1 record.