Eastern’s Emma Litzinger sends the ball forward for the Lady Warriors against Fayetteville.
Photo/Garth Shanklin
One Brown County soccer team found themselves a spot on the most recent state coaches poll this past week.
The Eastern Lady Warriors, currently 10-1-1 overall and a perfect 4-0 in Southern Hills Athletic Conference play, checked in at No. 14 this week in the Division III poll.
That ranking came on the heels of a pair of trio this past week. Eastern defeated Landmark Christian 5-1, Fayetteville 7-0 and Reading 5-2. The team battled Clinton-Massie to a 1-1 draw on October 11.
Head coach Dan Silvis said the Lady Warriors are starting to gel as a squad and they’re taking his message of ball possession to heart.
“It’s going well,” Silvis said. “The girls are really meshing. We do a lot of work on keeping possession of the ball and ball touches. It’s coming along really well.”
Eastern has yet to lose to an Ohio team this season. The Lady Warriors’ only defeat of the season came on September 11, a 10-0 loss to a Highlands (KY) team that is ranked eighth in the state, according to the most recent RPI release on October 12.
This year, Eastern has picked up non-league wins over Hillsboro (5-2), Waverly (9-0) and Bethel-Tate (4-0). The Lady Warriors have done so using a balanced and potent offensive attack.
“Nobody can key on a certain player,” Silvis said. “Everybody contributes to the scoring….By keeping possession and moving the ball around, everybody gets a chance to score,” “We’re not trying to key on one player, get the ball to her to shoot the ball.”
Three of the top six players in the SHAC in terms of total points are on the field for the Warriors. Mary Litzinger is second with 40 total points this season followed by Rylee Leonard in third with 36. Torie Utter is sixth with 27 points.
Litzinger is far and away the conference assist leader with 16. Three players tied for second place have eight. Leonard is second in the league with 16 goals. Litzinger and Utter are tied for fifth with 12 each.
The Lady Warriors aren’t all offense, however. A youthful defense received a boost with the switch of Mackenzie Dotson to the back as the team’s sweeper.
“They’re young,” Silvis said. “I’ve got one senior back there. They’ve grown this season. Dotson, she started playing as a stopper. We moved her back to the sweeper a couple games into the season. She’s playing really well.”
Any player that does get past the Eastern back line then has to deal with junior Alyssa Perkins, who took on the Eastern goalkeeper role out of necessity last season but has grown into it since.
“She’s come a long way,” Silvis said. “She never played keeper until the second game of last season and she’s grown. She’s one of the top keepers in our league.”
Perkins sits fifth in the SHAC in saves with 58. Her six shutouts are tied for first place in the league.
She and the Lady Warriors have a tough task ahead of them. The team is slated to host 6-2-6 Lynchburg-Clay in a contest on Friday, October 15 at 4:30 p.m. The game has been postponed twice, the latter time due to a lack of officials.
Lynchburg, like Eastern, is undefeated in league play. The Lady Mustangs sport a 1-0-2 record in the SHAC pending the result of a game against Ripley on October 13.
