By WILL DAVIES / Special to the Reporter           

ALABASTER – The Thompson Warriors girls’ soccer team lost to the Hoover Buccaneers 2-1 in overtime on April 14. The game had massive implications, with the winning team moving on to the state playoffs. The Warriors put themselves into this situation after beating the powerful Lady Eagles of Oak Mountain for the first time in program history on April 12.

Both teams struggled to get things going offensively in the first half. Hoover had several chances off of corner kicks, but Thompson really struggled to penetrate Hoover’s defense.

“To be quite honest, coming off of a huge win (Oak Mountain win) you always wonder how you are going to come out and play the next game and I thought we were extremely flat in the midfield,” said Thompson head coach Nathan Button.

The first half ended in a 0-0 tie, but things changed early in the second half. Hoover nearly scored on a corner kick six minutes into the second half. The Lady Bucs finally capitalized with 23:48 left in the game when Nicole Kennedy headed a corner kick into the back of the net to make the score 1-0.

Things were looking bleak for the Warriors until the 77^th minute when Melanie Brannon took a beautiful touch on a through ball and rocketed a shot on goal. The ball ricocheted off of the right post and into the goal to tie the score 1-1 and eventually send the game into overtime, where the first goal scored ended the game.

Thompson had the momentum going into overtime and played with more passion and vigor. They had several scoring opportunities in the first five minutes of overtime that they didn’t have in the first 77 minutes of the game. After not being able to convert in the first half of overtime, the teams switched sides to play the second half.

The first several minutes of overtime were filled with back and forth possession changes in the midfield until Hoover broke through. Sydney DeJohn sent a fantastic through ball to Jilian Joyner. Joyner put a fantastic touch on the ball and took a shot outside of the box that floated over the head of the Thompson keeper into the back of the net to win the game.

“I told them in between overtime halves that we are going to score if we do what we do. If we move the ball around and connect one, two, or three passes we will be there…and we connected a ball in the midfield, Sydney DeJohn found Jillian Joyner and Jillian has a great left foot. As soon as she hit it, I knew it was in,” said Hoover head coach Will Patridge

“I thought we won the last three minutes and both overtimes, but she hit a shot that floated in that we lost in the air and they got it,” said Button.

The Warriors’ final game of the season will be on April 21 against Huntsville High School.