Boller-Pinkham Scores 50th Career Goal
In a milestone week for senior forward Lucy Boller-Pinkham, the Rockbridge County High School girls soccer team split a pair of Shenandoah District road games, suffering a 9-1 loss to Stuarts Draft on Tuesday of last week before defeating Buffalo Gap 7-0 on Thursday.
The Wildcats ended the week at 3-9-0, both overall and in the district.
With the win over Gap (0-13-0 overall, 0-12-0 district), the Wildcats completed a sweep of the season series. RC won 12-0 on April 6 in Lexington.
The rematch got off to a slow start. RC head coach said that, with the Wildcats leading 2-0 at halftime, they “needed to make some adjustments and get back up to speed.”
In the second half, the Wildcats “started working together better and played more like a unit, which showed as we scored five more [goals],” said Dietz.
Boller-Pinkham led RC with five goals, while Anna Feldman and Emily Jones each scored one goal. Two nights earlier, Boller-Pinkham scored her 50th career goal.
“I’m extremely excited for Lucy,” said Dietz of Boller-Pinkham, who signed her national letter of intent on April 30 to play soccer for Division IIII school Greensboro College in North Carolina. “She has worked really hard, and her efforts are paying off. The team benefits so much from her experience. Greensboro is very lucky to have her heading that way in the future.”
Leading the Wildcats in assists were Jones and Elsa Kerin-Rice with two each, while Reece Havird and Macy Rogers each had one assist.
In goal, RC junior Caden Marshall made four saves.
SD 9, RC 1
Stuarts Draft coasted to a 9-1 win over the visiting Wildcats on Tuesday of last week. It was the same score the Cougars (9-2-2 overall and district) beat RC by on April 2 in Lexington.
Boller-Pinkham’s 50th goal was the Wildcats’ only goal, assisted by Abigail Guashpa. Marshall had a valiant effort in goal against a talented offense, making 16 saves.
“Stuarts Draft is a tough opponent,” said Dietz. “We struggled to keep up with their speed.”
The Wildcats have three games on the schedule this week. They were slated to play a nondistrict game at Rocktown on Monday before visiting district rival Wilson Memorial last night. They’ll continue district action when they play host to Riverheads on Thursday before traveling on Tuesday to Fort Defiance, then concluding the regular season at home against Alleghany next Wednesday. All three nights start with junior varsity action at 5:30 p.m., with varsity games scheduled to follow at 7.
Because RC will be installing artificial turf on its home field, with the work starting this week, the Wildcats will be playing their home games on the turf field at The Fields at Southern Virginia University in Buena Vista.
