Carrboro girls blanks Franklinton in NCHSAA 2A soccer playoffs
Dominating the run of play all night and peppering Franklinton’s goal with 18 quality shots, No. 1-seeded Carrboro ended the 25th-seeded Red Rams’ unlikely run in the N.C. High School Athletics Association 2A girls’ soccer playoffs with a 5-0 shutout Wednesday night.
Leah Simon scored twice for Carrboro (18-0-1), which won its 10th straight match and recorded its 18th shutout. Lauren Gilliam, Laura Sparling and Katie Knotek each scored one goal. Sparling and her sister, Kate Sparling, as well as Knotek, and Miah Araba each notched an assist.
“We played well, but not great,” Carrboro coach Jared Drexler said, noting that Carrboro let several scoring chances go begging inside the penalty area.
Franklinton ended its year at 11-8-0, having reached the program’s high-water mark in the playoffs.
Franklinton’s 6-foot goalkeeper, Anna Moss, signed to played volleyball next year at North Carolina, stopped 14 shots on-goal Wednesday, at least two of them point-blank in one-on-one confrontations with Jaguars inside the six-yard box.
“Anna Moss is amazing. She’s one of the best in the state,” Franklinton coach Bert Woodburn said.
Moss played in the field Saturday, scoring in regulation and then in a fourth overtime period to lift Franklinton to a 2-1 victory at Eastern Randolph in the playoffs’ second round.
“The girls were on fire after that,” said Woodburn. “This is the farthest we’ve ever gone. I’m really proud of them.”
Woodburn took over Franklinton at the start of the playoffs after the team lost its fifth straight and head coach Issac Walker parted ways with the soccer program for unspecified reasons.
“We just worked to rebuild things after that,” Woodburn said.
Despite its improbable run through South Columbus and then Eastern Randolph in the 2A playoffs, Franklinton had little answer for Carrboro’s possession-minded offense, which has out-scored opponents 122-1 so far this year.
“We felt pretty confident coming into the game,” Simon said, noting Carrboro shut out Franklinton 9-0 in the 2014 regular season. “Coach Drex told us not to pay attention to the result from last year, but we thought we’d win.”
Carrboro scored in the game’s 16th minute on Laura Sparling’s cross to Gilliam at the six-yard line. And Simon scored her first goal barely six minutes later on an assist from Laura Sparling. But Drexler thought the Jaguars could have scored more, and faster.
“We just didn’t bring our shooting boots tonight,” he said.
Simon added an insurance goal with 26:35 to play, assisted by Knotek. Laura Sparling and Knotek scored 65 seconds apart in the game’s 72nd and 73rd minute to ice the win.
This story was originally published May 20, 2015 at 10:25 PM with the headline "Carrboro girls blanks Franklinton in NCHSAA 2A soccer playoffs."