By Drew Terhall

Dailyadvocate.com

GREENVILLE — The Greenville boys and girls soccer teams both competed well against the tough Xenia teams at home at the Jennings Track and Field Complex on September 3.

The Lady Wave started the day off with a 4-0 loss to Xenia. Head coach John Tabler said he was thrilled with the team’s improvement and effort in this match against a Xenia team that only lost 4-0 to a great Tippecanoe team earlier this season. He has seen the team improve after each match.

“Happy with where we’re at with these young girls. We’ll keep pushing them in practice. We’ll keep coming out and battling people every week. It’s all we can do,” Tabler said.

Things started rough for Greenville. The Lady Buccs scored their first goal of the game when junior goalkeeper Rachel Wright went to kick the ball deep and a Xenia player jumped in the ball’s path. The deflection went far away to Wright’s side and into the goal.

Tabler said that was a great player getting a bad break. Wright has been solid in net so far this season and has been more aggressive there than in years past. Her hard work and effort could spread out to the rest of the team.

“It was the worse luck in the world. Rachel just blasted the ball and the girl jumped and threw her body in the way and there it goes,” Tabler said. “That girl tonight just as our goalie, we’ve been working on how you become more aggressive as a goalie. Tonight, she played lights out. Her diving save on the far end was an amazing save. That’s what we’re looking for. That will then inspire the rest of our players.”

In a span of two minutes in the first half, Xenia scored a goal off a deep kick that hit top shelf and scored off a corner kick to take a 3-0 lead into halftime. The Lady Buccs scored one more goal in the second half from a shot outside of the box.

The Lady Wave spent a lot of time in the offensive zone. They had some chances but couldn’t convert on them. The offense has improved from spending a lot of time on defense to running up and down the field trading possession with their opponent.

After the girls game, the boys team took on Xenia. In the first five minutes, Xenia scored three goals to take a 3-0 lead. But after that, Greenville got comfortable and started to compete with the Buccaneers.

Head coach Brad Feldner said the team kept fighting throughout the match and didn’t give up. The Green Wave fought for all 80 minutes and showed everyone how much they grew since the first match.

“We’re consistently improving. We got a good, long week before our next match. We got some time to work on some things,” Feldner said.

Like the girls team, the boys were able to move the ball down the field and create some scoring chances. In the first half, they couldn’t convert.

Xenia scored two more goals in the first half and led 5-0 at halftime.

Then the Green Wave came out firing in the second half. Junior Jiji Jim scored a goal three minutes into the second half to get Greenville on the board.

Greenville then kept up the offensive intensity and spent the majority of the second half on Xenia’s side of the field. Felder said the team has improved on maintaining possession in a match and are getting closer with each game to putting up more goals.

“The last two matches, we’ve had good pieces of time where we maintained possession in the opponent’s half of the field. That’s what we need to work on and do a little bit better,” Feldner said.

In the final minutes of the match, Xenia got one to go in to make it a 6-1 win for the Buccaneers.

The boys team is now 0-5 with a 0-3 MVL record so far this season. They will next play at Stebbins on September 10 at 5:30 p.m.

The girls team is now 0-5 on the season with a 0-3 MVL record. They will host Kenton Ridge on September 7 at noon and then be at Stebbins on September 10 for a 7:15 p.m. match. It will be a quick turn around after that with a home match against Tippecanoe on September 11 at 6 p.m.

Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected].