Chances missed in loss

Like she did twice in the previous 10 minutes, Gabbie Mann was inside the 18-yard box with the ball and just the goalie in front of her.
There was fewer than three minutes left in the game Tuesday and the Jay County High School girls soccer team was trailing Richmond by one.
Mann’s two-touch dribble beat goalkeeper Courtney McNew, but defender Lillian Sagna caught her from behind and knocked the ball away. It stayed in the box as Mann’s classmate, Sophie Bader, crashed the net, but her attempt for the potential game-tying goal also went unfinished.
Richmond’s Payton VanMiddlesworth scored 45 seconds later and the Red Devils defeated the Patriots 5-3.
“We had plenty of opportunities,” said JCHS coach Giles Laux. “We had some shots, they were just a little off on the field.”
Mann had two goals in the game — she notched the first tally of the night 2:27 into the contest on a through pass from Mariah Bailey and scored again with 13 minutes left — and had a few chances at completing the hat trick late in the second half.
Two of those came inside the penalty area but went directly at McNew. A handful of others came from 20 or more yards away, but they missed the 8-foot-by-24-foot goal.
Mann said she would have executed that final opportunity differently if she could do it again.
“I wish I would have cut the ball a little more and taken a shot a little quicker,” said Mann, who had 30 goals last season. “I think I would have gotten a couple more (shots) off.”
Richmond coach Eric Wilson was thankful the ball stayed out of the goal.
“There were some lucky times,” he said. “(Mann) probably could have had a couple more goals. She did very well and really put the pressure on us.
“A couple of our players didn’t take into consideration her speed right out of the gate. Kind of caught us off guard a few times.”
Jay County (0-1) started the contest quickly with Mann’s goal, but the team fell flat and looked complacent with an early lead. For more than 15 minutes, Richmond (1-0) set the pace, not letting the host Patriots get much going in the way of offense.
Meanwhile, Richmond’s scoring opportunities became more and more frequent, and it was able to convert on them to take a 3-1 lead into halftime.
“(We) started to find our feet and find who we were about halfway through the (opening) half,” said Wilson, whose team shut out Jay County 4-0 in the season opener last year. “(We) started to put things together and looked a little better.”
Braxtyn Hurley put Richmond on the board midway through the first half with a goal from the left side of the penalty box to the far post, and six minutes later Samantha Wilson did the same from the opposite side of the field to beat JCHS keeper Lilly Rogers.
Less than a minute later, VanMiddlesworth tallied her first goal. She was near the top of the 18-yard box to Rogers’ right side, fired a shot near post that bounced over Rogers’ extended arms.
Jay County came out of the break applying the pressure and got Mann four chances in the first 11 minutes, one of which she tried to go near post when she was alone in the box with McNew. Her attempt came up short.
VanMiddlesworth completed her hat trick on a one-touch goal on a corner kick from Alexis Shiplett with 24:23 remaining. VanMiddlesworth was at the top of the penalty area and fired a shot at the top right corner of the goal that Rogers was unable to deflect.
Nearly five minutes passed before Bader tallied her first goal of the season. She took the ball from near midfield, beat a defender into the left side of the penalty area then fired a right-footed shot to the far side past McNew.
It cut the deficit to 4-2 before Mann got her team within one goal in the 47th minute.
“I think it was amazing how we came out in the second half,” said Mann. “We brought each other up and communicated a lot more.”