Elmore County girls, Tallassee boys win big area matchups

The Elmore County and Tallassee soccer teams split a big area matchup last week.

The Elmore County girls beat the visiting Tallassee girls, 7-0, while the Tallassee boys picked up their first area win in the nightcap, 7-2.

The Elmore County girls wasted no time with their blowout of the Tigers, who are in their first season as a program. Elmore County coach Leslie Hinds knew that Tallassee stacked the box, so she decided to adjust the team’s gameplan going in.

Her team focused on kicking straight at the goal to try and give more opportunities to gain possession and get extra shots off. The Panthers ran that game plan to near perfection as they controlled possession on Tallassee’s side of the field for seemingly the entire game.

That also led to plenty of shots, and plenty of goals.

With Elmore County on Tallassee’s side of the field, defender Emilie Shaw was able to get scoring opportunities and opened the game with her first career goal. Emily Spears and Kristina Elmore added one goal each, while senior Raney Jones scored four goals.

“Raney is an exceptional player that gives 100% every time she steps on the field and touches the ball for every minute of the game,” Hines said. “She has a natural ability to move the ball up the field and take shots on goal from every angle on the field.”

Jones was nearly unstoppable in the game as she took shots from the middle, left and right side of the field. When she didn’t have the ball, she was chasing down Tallassee players who did and stole it from them.

She’s been the team’s leading scorer all season, and that was on full display against Tallassee. She currently has 14 goals on the year and numerous assists as well.

In the boy’s matchup, there was no stopping Tallassee once the Tigers were able to run freely. The Tigers scored four times in the first 20 minutes. Jonathan Wright scored twice, once by outrunning everyone on the field and once on a header, while Will Blocker and Francisco Diego each scored once during that span.

Wright ended up with another goal in the second half to complete his hat trick, while Irvin Delfin scored twice in the blowout win.

“We played really well together tonight,” Tallassee coach Matt Tarpley said. “We were able to connect and trust our teammates. We relied on each other and that led to four early goals. From there, it was pretty much out of hand. They have a really good team and really good players, but playing from behind is hard. We put our foot on their neck and didn’t let up.”

Elmore County was able to net two goals, both off the foot of Tate McNeely. He scored once on a penalty kick and once on a header that came off the crossbar.

With the win, Tallassee moves to 1-2 in area play and has three games left. They will play all three games at home as they hope to make a playoff push.

This game was huge for us,” Tarpley said. “We knew we had dropped two area games to Brew Tech and Beauregard two weeks ago and we needed a win tonight to have a chance to stay in the area race. If we can win those three games we have left, we will win the area for the first time in the history of Tallassee soccer.”