An inspired second half on offense by Washington wasn’t enough to counteract a talented White Oak team on Tuesday as the Pam Pack fell 3-1 to its Coastal Conference rival.
Facing the defending NCHSAA 3-A state champions, Washington knew its margin of error would be slim on defense and without goal scoring machine Christian Heggie on offense the Pam Pack could not keep pace with White Oak and managed to score once when Alana Jefferson drilled a goal midway through the second half.
“When we played them over there we lost 2-1, and we knew if we could play good defense we could keep them out of the goal. Unfortunately, we made some mistakes on defense in the first and second half,” Washington coach Ed Rodriguez said. “We knew if we could pressure them on defense we could get some shots and when we started doing that we put some balls in the area.”
The Vikings were able to get on the scoreboard early as they notched a goal in the first five minutes of play. After that, the Pam Pack (6-9-2) buckled down on the defensive end and kept White Oak from scoring for the rest of the first half to go into the break trailing only 1-0.
In the second half, Washington upped the ante with its pressure and got results as the Pam Pack created several scoring opportunities but only cashed in on one.
The drawback of going to a more offensive style of play was that it allowed White Oak fastbreak opportunities, which it took advantage by scoring back-to-back goals in a three-minute span.
The Vikings took a 2-0 lead at the 32:33 mark and then upped their advantage a few minutes later when they raced down field and managed to get one past keeper Emily Alligood to go up 3-0.
“Counter attacks are very important in this game and if you don’t get a good shot that goes in or out of bounds then you get caught in a counter attack and you have to be able to answer for that,” Rodriguez said.
The Pam Pack responded at the 12:40 mark as Alana Jefferson screeched down the left sideline and drilled a long distance shot into the right side of the net to cut the deficit to 3-1.
Jefferson nearly brought it to 3-2 shortly after but her shot sailed an inch or two high and bounced off the crossbar.