Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

INDIAN SPRINGS VILLAGE – The Pelham Panthers continued their run through area play by getting revenge for their lone loss of area play against Indian Springs.

Pelham came into the match on Friday, April 5 at Indian Springs School with momentum on its side. The Panthers were fresh off a thrilling shootout win at Briarwood that gave them a top-10 win for their second straight win in area play.

Now on the home stretch of the area slate, Pelham hoped to get another win to help separate it from the three-team pack tied atop the area at 2-1 alongside Indian Springs and Briarwood.

On the other hand, Springs entered the match searching for a bounce-back win as they hadn’t won in four matches, including losses in their last two to Briarwood and Northridge.

They would need to do so against another top team in the state as their tough recent schedule continued, but this time, they had home-field advantage against an area foe they had already beaten in a penalty shootout on the road on March 12.

The Panthers got the better of the two teams in the early stretch of the match. They broke the scoreless deadlock before halftime to take a 1-0 lead, and that advantage held through when the teams went to the locker room for the halftime break.

Not content with just a one-goal lead, Pelham put distance between itself and its county foe with another goal in the second half to extend the lead to 2-0.

The Panthers remained strong on defense the rest of the way and kept Indian Springs from scoring the entire game to secure the clean sheet.

That effort on both ends of the pitch gave Pelham the 2-1 win on the road.

With the victory, Pelham moved into a tie for first place with Briarwood, which won against Helena while the Panthers squared off with Springs. The Lions hold the tiebreaker on goal differential as they lead Pelham in the category +6 to +3.

Pelham has a tough non-area test on deck for its next match as it travels to Gardendale on Tuesday, April 9 at 7 p.m. As for Indian Springs, it will host Briarwood during that same time as it aims to keep its area title hopes alive.