By Thomas Sellers Jr.
The 2019 soccer season has started not too far away from home for the Millington Lady Trojans.
As the Lady Trojans awaited the debut of their new soccer home at Hornet Field, Millington took two competitive defeats to area rivals the Tipton-Rosemark Academy Lady Rebels and Brighton Lady Cardinals.
Finally Thursday arrived and the Ripley Lady Tigers showed up to Flag City to help the Lady Trojans debut their new digs. Millington made the home crowd happy early and often winning the District 15-2A contest 11-2.
“This new field is fabulous out here,” Millington Head Coach Rosemary Bosewell said. “We had crowd participation on both sides, very good for us.”
Millington’s first victory of the season came in time to give the Lady Trojans a 1-0 record in league play. The Lady Trojans got off to a fresh start at Hornet Field courtesy of freshman Alexis Thompson.
Thompson scored the first Lady Trojan goal at Hornet Field.
The second Millington goal came off the foot of second-year player Koreena Bedford. Bedford hit two attempts in a row to make the score 3-2 in favor of the Lady Trojans.
Bosewell said Ripley was able to tally a pair of goal early because of defensive lapses. But once Millington became more aggressive on the backline, the Lady Trojans dominated the tempo for the rest of the game.
The Lady Trojans led 4-2 at the break after Julizeth Cuevas scored on a laser into the back of the net.
The final 40 minutes of the contest belonged to the Lady Trojans. Junior striker Alexis Jordan used her speed to escape the Lady Tiger defense on the outside. Jordan was able to locate the net on a rebound to make the score 6-2.
Next in line to score for the Lady Trojans was Tess Cook. The sophomore dribble and evaded three Lady Tigers for her goal.
Junior Angelica Alaniz scored goal No. 7 on the day. Then Thompson’s second goal of the game sent the crowd into a frenzy. Thompson took a penalty kick from about 25 yards out. She aired the ball into a perfect loop into the net to make the tally 8-2.
Micaiah Halliburton chipped in with a goal and Cook put Millington into double figures with her second goal of the half.
Cook closed the day with a hat-trick scoring a goal in the 78th minute.
“It’s a good start for league, district,” Bosewell concluded. “I want them to build teamwork. And I think that pretty much showed today in our second half. Teamwork was better in the second half than the first. I just want them to take this win to work and learn from it.”
