Golden Falcons strike quickly against South Johnston

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on March 14, 2013 1:47 PM

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PIKEVILLE -- The quick-strike mentality is paying off.

Charles B. Aycock notched two goals within a seven-minute span in the early stages of the opening half and dismantled Eastern Carolina 3-A Conference foe South Johnston, 8-2, on Wednesday evening.

Cheyenne Warrick, the two-time reigning News-Argus girls' soccer player-of-the-year, punched in five goals and dished out one assist. Sabrina Johnson contributed one goal and one assist, while Alex Strickland and Emily Borel supplied one goal apiece.

Strickland, Cady Sheeks and Jaden Thames each had one assist.

"The girls passed the ball well," Golden Falcons assistant coach Byron Adkins said. "We are working well early, which is something we've been working on in practice. Last year, we kind of got stagnant with not a lot of movement

"This year, the passing's got to be better and the movement's got to be better if we want to make the playoffs."

Thames sent a ball to Warrick that wasn't touched by a single South Johnston defender. Warrick, one of eight seniors, dribbled into the box and Trojans keeper Sidney Dunn took away the angle.

Warrick fired a goal-scoring shot to the back post.

Less than three minutes later, a defensive miscue benefited the unbeaten Golden Falcons. Warrick capitalized on the error and Aycock (3-0 overall, 3-0 ECC) controlled the tempo from that point.

The Golden Falcons increased their lead to 3-0 when Johnson took a centering pass from Warrick and tucked it into the net. Three Aycock shots clanged off either the crossbar or posts and two other goals were negated due to offside.

"That's Cheyenne for you ... helps when you have her up top and the midfield that we have back from last year," a smiling Adkins said. "Adding a freshman (Johnson) who can actually play a little bit this year is a big help for us."

Aycock owned a 41-8 edge in shots.

Golden Falcon reserves Sarina Lancaster and Gabrielle Pettersen combined for three saves between the pipes. Starting goalie Alex Van-Mier and sophomore Julia Stamper combined for a first-half shutout.

South Johnston averted the shutout with two second-half goals.

It was the final tune-up for Aycock, which plays host to defending ECC tournament champion Cleveland on Friday. The Golden Falcons have won all four regular-season meetings against the Rams.

"It was a good warm-up for us tonight, we worked on some things that we have been doing in practice all week," Adkins said. "Cleveland, to me, is going to be a conference-title match for us. We have to defend well, take the chances that we didn't take tonight.

"We didn't finish tonight. I like the shot selections, but they just didn't go in."