KNOXVILLE – The Greeneville soccer team wrapped up a challenging week on Sunday with a 3-2 loss to Maryville at the Bearden Invitational.
Sunday was the Lady Devils fifth game in seven days. During that stretch they collected wins over Christian Academy of Knoxville, Knoxville Catholic and District 1-AA foe Unicoi County, and lost to Baylor and Maryville while playing in the Knoxville tournament.
“We would have liked to have this win, and we felt like we were the better squad,” Greeneville coach Jerry Graham said. “We are little injury riddled right now, and on the third day of the tournament both teams are tired. I’m still proud of the way the girls played. We have been able to fix a lot of things this week. We felt like the first two games here at Bearden we started to put some things together. We thought things would fall together again today, but we were missing some keys girls and other were playing out of position.”
Greeneville was able to strike first on Sunday with a goal in the ninth minute. The play started when Maryville’s defense played the ball back to the goalie but Tanna Bookhamer stole away possession of the keeper’s short boot. The ball found its way to Anna Shaw in the back left corner of the 18-yard box where she expertly placed a shot in the upper right corner of the frame for 1-0 lead.
“That was an amazing shot. She was coming across left to right, put it off her right foot and found the top right corner. I wish we would have had a few more opportunities like that,” Graham said.
The Lady Rebels did not play behind for long and tied things up in the 14th minute. Maryville’s Kayla Barr, a University of Tennessee commitment, was tripped up in the box resulting in a penalty kick. Barr converted the free attempt to knot the score at 1-1.
“Kayla Barr is a really good player, but I do think worrying about her too much took us a little bit out of what we wanted to do,” Graham said. “I do feel like our defense has played really good this weekend, talking and communicating back there. But Maryville was able to attack with three With Barr coming up that left side, and let everyone else fall back. That let them get back in transition and really clogged up our passing lanes.”
Barr put the Lady Rebels in front 2-1 in the 23rd minute. The future Lady Vol made an attacking run at the frame from the left side. Once in the box she slipped a defender and caught keeper Mary Brooks offline before hammering a shot into the back of the net.
In the closing minutes of the first half Shaw, Bookhamer and Abigail Adkins all were able to get open looks, but none of their shots made it past Maryville’s Kate Winkler in the goal.
Greeneville was able to tie things up at 2-2 in the 52nd minute. Shaw got things started when she sent a cross to Annemarie Konieczny at the top of the box where the senior midfielder sent a hard shot at the frame that Winkler spilled. Bookhamer was the first to the ball and sent it back at the net. Winkler stopped the first rebound attempt, but Bookhamer stuck with it and got her second attempt to fly between the posts for a goal.
Maryville’s final goal of the day came in the 61st minute. The Lady Rebels sent a corner kick into a crowded box, but after a few bounces Barr was able to find the right angle and punched a shot inside the right post.
Konieczny and Shaw both kept Greeneville on the attack over the final 20 minutes, but the equalizing shot never materialized.
Greeneville will be back in action on Tuesday at Fox Field for a key District 1-AA matchup with Elizabethton.
