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Lady Timberwolves claim first round playoff win

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CP boys fall in first round to Temple, 3-2

TEMPLE - Cedar Park wasn't going to accept another one-and-done postseason in Tuesday's Class 5A bi-district round matchup with Temple, as the Lady Timberwolves dominated from start to finish in claiming a 2-1 win over the Lady Wildcats.

Cedar Park (19-5-1) now moves on to face The Woodlands College Park in the second round, with the match set for tonight at 6 p.m. at the Round Rock ISD Athletic Complex.

In Tuesday's win, Cedar Park outshot Temple 32-4 and used its solid speed up top and great ball control in the midfield to control the match throughout.

“I think we may have been a little tight with our play early, but I still felt we controlled things,” said Cedar Park coach Jennifer Womack. “It was frustrating to have so many shots on goal and not score early, but I knew the goals would come if we kept the pressure on.”

The Lady T'wolves turned the pressure up from the start, getting a trio of early tries from Chelsea Smith in the opening 10 minutes. Point blank tries from Tabytha Horseman and Kierstin Luber followed over the next five minutes, keeping the Temple defense on its heels.

However, it was the Lady Wildcats that scored the first goal of the match with a rebound goal off a corner kick with 22:15 left in the opening half.

“We came out so strong and I think we may have underestimated them a bit,” Womack said of the goal. “But that goal was a wake-up call for us too, the girls came out ready to answer.”

Cedar Park showed more physical play after that, helping to set up the tying goal by Courtney Warren with 15:57 left in the half.

Warren's goal was a point-blank try set up by a pass up top from LeShea Millard, with the pass floating over a defender to find Warren wide open.

The Lady T'wolves continued to strafe the Lady Wildcats' goal with shots, with Alex Saraceno and Smith each notching two tries apiece. But the score stayed tied at 1-1 going into the half.

In the second half, Cedar Park continued to pound away at the Temple goal, with Warren, Horseman and Smith each having great tries in the opening 15 minutes.

That pressure finally broke the Temple defense with 20 minutes to play, with Warren again putting away a point-blank try off a cross by Saraceno for a 2-1 lead.

“Courtney really stepped up her play and she put away two big goals for us,” Womack said.

Solid play in the midfield by Horseman, Saraceno and Millard continued to help stymie the Temple attack. Defenders Alyssa Scott and Nicole Blavet also helped defuse the few counters that came their way late in the second half.

Goalkeeper Ashley Briggs, starting for the injured Kyle Shuster, also played well and notched a nice diving save with 12:30 to play.

Temple 3, Cedar Park 2

The majority of the play in Tuesday's playoff match against Temple belonged to Cedar Park. However it wasn't enough to keep the Timberwolves season going in a close loss to the Wildcats.

Cedar Park (12-8-2) outshot Temple 27-12 in the match, but was outscored 2-1 in the second half to decide a match that was tied 1-1 at the half.

“This was a well played match all the way around,” said Cedar Park coach Timo Sheard. “Both teams had chances to score in each half, unfortunately it was Temple that made the most of those chances.”

The T'wolves drew first blood in the match, claiming a 1-0 lead on a penalty kick goal by Devon Purslow just 10 minutes into the match. The lead stayed intact until late in the half, with Temple scoring on a kick from 25 yards out to knot the score at 1-1.

In the second half, Temple took the lead just 19 seconds as a missed save by goalkeeper Matt Karkos led to a rebound goal.

Cedar Park didn't wait long to respond, as James Donahue scored from 15 yards out off a free kick by Purslow to tie the match 2-2 with 33:27 remaining.

The T'wolves added great tries from Trevor Shoppach, Brett Buzbee, Christian Frederickson and Purslow over the next 20 minutes on offense. Goalkeeper Michael Darby also had a pair of amazing saves to keep the score where it was for Cedar Park.

Temple, however, broke through on a point blank goal with 6:45 remaining to play. But Cedar Park pushed the game to the end, with two great tries on goal with under two minutes to play.

One of those was a blast by Donahue from 20 yards out that was barely deflected out of the goal. The other came with 20 seconds to play during a wild scramble near the Temple goal, with the ball ringing off the post.

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