Every time rivals Atlee and Lee-Davis take the field against one another it can expected to be a fight to the finish. However, last Friday when the two girls’ soccer teams met up at Atlee it turned into a Battle Royale the likes of which few had witnessed before. The spectators saw every player on the field going at it with such intensity that it attributed to the three stoppages of play due to injury.

  Though it was senior night for the Lady Raiders who have dominated district play throughout the season, the Lady Confederates thought they had finally turned the corner against their arch-nemesis when senior Kimmy Cummings scored her second goal of the game to tie the contest at two in the final minute of play.

  But somehow, Atlee found a way to win. Hustling the inbounds down field, the Lady Raiders got the rock to their hottest scorer Lindsay Booth and from the right corner with the final seconds ticking away she scored her third goal of the game to eek out the 3-2 win.

  “Honestly, I don’t know how we pulled that out,” said Atlee senior captain Kristin Lescalleet. “They were just playing their hardest and we just had to match their intensity and we finally did toward the end. We had luck going our way apparently tonight and kind of squeaked it out in the end.

  “We just played the ball up there, like a ‘Hail Mary’ in football I guess,” Lescalleet said. “We just played the ball up there and just happened to find Booth’s foot, the keeper came out.”

  Atlee head coach Bruce Lovelace said he could not take credit for orchestrating the final score. “At that point there was no game plan,” he said.

  For the Lee-Davis players, the loss in the final seconds was a devastating disappointment. Long after the game, Cummings still stood on the sidelines in disbelief. “We came back and we scored with less than 30 seconds left,” she said. “Where that extra time came from that they scored in I’ll never know.”

  Even though Atlee came into the game ranked third in the region with an unblemished Capital District record, the Confederates showed from the onset that they were not going to back away from the challenge.

  “That was one of the most intense Atlee, Lee-Davis girls’ soccer games I’ve been associated with in the last five years,” said Confederates’ head coach Brad Dalton.

  With the district playoffs rapidly approaching, Dalton wanted and got a total effort from his team. “What I told the girls before the game was you’ve got to go out and play with everything you’ve got,” he said. “You can’t hold anything back and I think both teams did that tonight.”

  Cummings said the team was well motivated to play well. “Losing 4-0 to them last time we knew that was kind of not our best game that we played,” she said. “We were just thinking of that. We put it all together and put it out there.”

  Both teams battled to a scoreless tie at the half but Cummings put Lee-Davis on the board early in the second with a carom off the right standard that bounced into the back of the goal.

  Atlee answered on Booth’s first goal then took the lead on her second to set up the final drama.

  “They played a great match,” Lovelace said of the C-feds. “They played well, we were lucky to get away with that one.”

  Though Lovelace credited the hard play of Lee-Davis, he was not happy with his own team’s performance. “It’s not where it should be,” he said. “The whole thing we kept telling them is we’ve got to possess the ball and we just didn’t do a very good job of it,” Lovelace said. “When you have leads you have to possess it and we didn’t possess it. We gave them chances. If we have the ball they can’t score but we didn’t do that.”

  One of the greatest detriments to Atlee’s ability to control the ball came in the form of Lee-Davis senior defender Jo Highfill who was all over the field annoying the Raiders’ offense.

  “She played an amazing game tonight,” Dalton said. “She’s played steady all year but she stepped it up tonight. She played outstanding. She kept us in the game.”

  Injuries also hindered Lee-Davis’ hopes for victory. Early in the second, they briefly lost Cummings, then later they lost Crystal Tuck for the remainder of the game. “It hurt us,” Dalton said. Though hindered by the absence of leading scorer Cummings, Dalton said the loss of Tuck on defense was worse. “That’s our thin spot,” he said. “We’ve got capable backups but to come into a game like that off the bench is kind of tough.”

  “I was playing hurt,” Cummings said. “But it’s kind of like none of us want to sit out in this game.”

  The two teams expect to see one another one more time in the district finals.

  Following the girls’ matchup, the Atlee boys’ made certain that their senior night would be spoiled by rival Lee-Davis either. Though the Confederates came into the contest ranked 5th in the region and undefeated in the district, it was the Raiders who came away with the 4-1 win leaving both teams tied at 8-1 in district play.

  Atlee used intense defense to keep C-feds’ leading scorer Eduardo Lopez in check throughout the game. Their lone goal came in the second half from Justin Taylor.

  For the Raiders, senior Ben Anderson notched a pair of goals, while Beck Shasky and Ian Shelton added one each.

  Atlee dominated shots at goal with Lee-Davis keeper Josh Newton coming away with 13 saves. Michael McCabe had five saves for Atlee.

Girls’ soccer
Lee-Davis……..  0 2 – 2
Atlee……………………  0 3 – 3
LD: Cummings 2, A: Booth 3
Saves: LD- Evans 14, A- Poland 5
Records Lee-Davis 6-2 Capital, 9-5; Atlee 9-0, 13-1.

Boys’ soccer
Lee-Davis……………….  0 1 – 1
Atlee……………...…….  2 2 – 4
LD: Taylor; A: Anderson 2, Shasky, Shelton
Saves: LD- Newton 13; A- McCabe 5
Records: Lee-Davis 8-1 Capital, 11-4; Atlee 8-1, 9-4-1.