Ariana Mills wasn’t sure exactly how it was going to end. But she trusted her teammates and her instincts and took a chance. She struck an incredible through ball that wove through the defense and allowed her teammate Leah Kirssin to catch up to it and score a goal that put William Monroe’s girls soccer team up by four goals.
“I just heard people yelling and I saw Leah running and I was like ‘I hope this works out’,” Mills said.
It was the kind of day where a lot of those kind of things worked out for the Dragons as they rolled to an 8-0 mercy rule victory over Skyline in the Conference 28 quarterfinals, a match that was halted with 20 minutes to play.
The win puts William Monroe just one win away from a berth in the Region 3A East which they can lock up with a win in the Conference 28 semifinals Wednesday.
The Dragons will have a shot at doing that if they can find the same balance and spacing that helped them blow the game against Skyline wide open Monday night later this week.
“It gets us wide and it lets us get opened up,” Mills said. “Once we’re open we see players and make passes and it usually ends up working out.”
The Dragons got several players involved early and had five different players notch at least a goal against the Hawks. A lot of that offense started or ended with Rachel DeMasters, as it so often has for the Dragons since she joined the varsity two years ago. DeMasters scored four goals and notched three assists for William Monroe, including a goal with just 15 seconds left in the first half and a penalty kick that pushed the Dragons’ lead to 8-0 in the second half. That output was even more impressive since Skyline appeared to man-mark the talented junior defensively much of the contest.
Brooke Baker, Kinsey McInturff and Jessica Auer rounded out the scoring along with Kirssin’s goal.
The Dragons will hit the road in the Conference 28 semifinals Wednesday.
