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Parkersburg South girls ready for Cabell Midland in regional soccer final

Dropped 1-0 decision to the Knights earlier this season

Photo by Jay W. Bennett Parkersburg South’s Katie Husk brings the ball down the field during her team’s 2-0 win over Wheeling Park earlier this season. Husk and company will be in action today when they take on Cabell Midland with a chance to go to the state tournament on the line.

PARKERSBURG — Much like the Chicago Cubs or the Cleveland Indians in the 2016 World Series, the Parkersburg South girls soccer team has a chance to snap a drought at 5 p.m. today at PHS Stadium Field.

While the Patriots’ drought isn’t 108 or 68 years long, nine years has been quite enough since the blue and white booters made its last appearance in the Class AAA state tournament in Beckley.

Ironically, the team they downed to get to the last games of the year in 2007 is the same team standing in the Patriots’ way this season — Cabell Midland.

Albeit with different players of course.

Ron Bucholtz and his team only faced the Knights of Ona once this season, a 1-0 loss in a possession heavy game from the victors, with the scarlet, silver and grey stifling a potent Parkersburg South passing attack.

Andy Wilson’s team used a 4-4-2 defensive setup to keep the Patriots off the scoreboard. Knights’ defender Abby Long led the effort and should factor heavily into the rematch defending South’s top goal scorers — chief among them Aiyana Lauderman.

“We played pretty solidly on defense,” said Bucholtz. “They (the Knights) only got behind our defense a few times and didn’t really get great shots off.

“In fact, Cabell’s only score came on a miscommunication between Sophia Miller and one of our defenders.

“Our defender thought Sophia was going to have the stop and Sophia thought the defender was going to clear and the Cabell girl took advantage to grab a score.”

Lauderman was a key player for the Patriots in their Region IV, Section 1 finals victory over Ripley.

The junior striker took passes from teammates Cassie Whitlatch and Callie Leasure and found the back of the net twice for South in its’ 2-1 win.

Meanwhile, Long played a big part in Cabell’s 3-1 Region IV, Section 2 finals win over Spring Valley. Wilson had the ferocious Knights’ defender shadow the Timberwolves’ Canaan Booton all game, who had 112 career goals coming into the game and will be playing for Marshall University next season, and the freshman held her own and limited Booton to just a few shots.

Offensively, Emilie Charles had a hand in every goal scored for the Knights. The freshman tallied two goals and assisted on another to finish up an impressive evening on the stat sheet. South kept a close eye on Charles in the first meeting. The defense contained her well and limited her to just one shot during the Knights win. She surely will be on the mind of the Patriots during tonight’s contest.

“If we are possessing the ball, we can take away Cabell’s direct, long-ball attack,” said Bucholtz. “Possession was something we didn’t do very well in the first game. Something we normally do very well at.”

Healthwise, the Patriots are reasonably healthy minus the few minor injuries most teams are dealing with at this time of the year. In fact, South will have a few players to call upon the team wasn’t able to bring in against Cabell earlier this season when the two teams get underway.

However, the Knights also have several strikers returning to the field heathly after missing playing time in the first matchup between the two teams this season.

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