A chip in off a rebound with 12:30 remaining is all the separation Wetumpka girls soccer needed in the end.
Marlie Fuller’s strike following a save by Benjamin Russell’s Keira Carver gave the Indians a 1-0 lead that proved decisive in area play Thursday at Martin-Savarese Stadium in Alexander City.
The victory meant much more for Wetumpka than just a leg up in playoff seeding, though.
“We’ve never beaten Benjamin Russell,” Wetumpka coach Jessica Holbert said. “To my knowledge, this is the first time our girls have ever beaten their girls. So it was more than just an area win for us.”
For the Indians, it started on the back end.
Junior goalkeeper Madison Milton entered in her usual top form, collecting nine saves as part of a clean sheet to record the victory.
“As expected. That’s how she plays,” Holbert said. “She doesn’t make many mistakes. But I can tell she was more in-tune with this. They wanted it.”
That’s not to say the Wildcats didn’t have their chances.
Sophomore winger Anna Corley had a cross placed at her feet near the net just more than eight minutes into the action, but her shot was saved by Milton.
Six minutes later sophomore forward Camila Sanchez took an accurate thru pass past the defense, but her strike bounced awkwardly off her foot and landed softly in Milton’s arms.
Twice in the opening 13 minutes of the second half the Wildcats placed crosses in prime position to score, but one resulted in a header that glanced off the crossbar and out and another got broken up by Milton after a chip.
Toward the end the team’s forwards began to slow down due to some fatigue, and the opportunities dried up.
“We were forcing ourselves to do more work than we should be doing,” Benjamin Russell head coach Lee Wagoner said. “Instead of letting the ball do the work and us playing within our system, we were forcing the issue. We were overexerting energy.”
The contest featured a good bit of hard contact and even a yellow card, physicality one might expect from a matchup between area rivals.
Holbert said the officials let a few fouls go that should have been called, though, exacerbating the issue.
“We knew coming into the game that it would be like that, because we’ve had this set of refs before,” Holbert said. “They just let them play, which I don’t like because it’s not good on either end. But yeah, physical.”
Wagoner noted he expects a better response from his team in such games.
“Credit to Wetumpka, they were the better team on the field tonight,” Wagoner said. “They outplayed us, and the 1-0 result that we ended up on the wrong side of proved that. I don’t make excuses, but after watching the game, we didn’t compete to the level I know we can compete to. We let the physicality worry us, maybe? I don’t know what it was, but we didn’t match it.”
Benjamin Russell wasn’t bereft of strong performances in its defeat, though.
Senior center back Laura Thames, a tall, imposing defender, served as a tremendous sweeper on the back end and broke up countless Wetumpka attacks.
“She’s always solid as a center back,” Wagoner said. “As far as saying she cleans up messes and sweeps up, those sorts of things, yes, but we forced her into one too many of those situations today. But she did a good job at it.”
The win moves the Indians to 5-3 overall with a 1-0 mark in area play, while Benjamin Russell stands at 5-4-1 with a 1-1 area tally.
Both teams return to the pitch Saturday, with Wetumpka welcoming Stanhope Elmore and Benjamin Russell hosting Pell City.
