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McDERMOTT — The Minford Falcons are playing with house money.
Following a tough-luck loss in last year’s Division III district semifinal round, coach Shane Tieman’s program had one goal in mind coming into this fall — get to a district championship game.
Mission accomplished … and in resounding fashion.
CREDIT: Derrick Webb/SOSA
The Falcons (11-5-2) handed Rock Hill a 5-0 loss in a Division III district semifinal on Monday at Northwest High School, giving themselves a chance to win their first-ever district championship.
“I think it’ll be our second time in the [district] finals. It’s been a bit,” Minford coach Shane Tieman said. “We’re in a year where, yeah we went 15-3 last year, but we wanted to challenge ourselves this year. So we scheduled the second-hardest strength of schedule, according to MaxPreps. So we knew that we needed to step up, we needed to challenge ourselves and I think the hard schedule really brought us that confidence. We can play with the big guys.”
Earlier this month, on Oct. 3, the two met in a regular season game. The result? Also, 5-0.
In that game, it was Lexi Conkel who did the brunt of the scoring with four goals alongside a score from Maggie Risner. On Tuesday, Conkel cashed in again with a hat trick while Lexi Pendleton added the team’s other two.
The point? Minford has a bevy of scoring options at its disposal, just waiting to be used.
“It’s good to have options,” Tieman said, with a smile. “My gosh, we have so many weapons. We’re very versatile. You know, Lexi Conkel gets a lot of the attention but the great thing about it is we have an Ava Cronin and we have a Maggie Risner, and we’ve got a Lexi Pendleton. And you know, we’ve got wings, we’ve got strong support out there and so you put all that together and when we’re playing our game, we’re hard to beat. The girls played unselfishly I thought. They’re very willing to play selflessly for the team. And that’s a great problem to have.”
Pendleton started Tuesday’s scoring just over four minutes into the action. The junior found the net, thanks to an assist from Risner, with 35:25 left in the first half, giving the Falcons a 1-0 lead.
Rock Hill (11-5-2), put simply, never found an answer. Instead, Minford poured on.
At the 22:41 mark, Conkel scored her first goal before Pendleton lit up the scoreboard once again with 18:19 left, making it 3-0 heading into halftime.
“We knew Rock Hill was going to come out hard. I mean, they’re a well-coached team, they have a lot of pride and a lot of good players. They weren’t going to be easy [to beat]. I knew we had to elevate our game,” Tieman said. “I felt like we’ve dragged a few times this season and I’m like, ‘Girls, forget the first game. You have to come out with intensity.’ We responded. In the first half, I felt like we still played flat. I lost my voice, pretty much, in the first half because I was just yelling at them, saying, ‘Get going, get going, get going. In the second half, they were anticipating a little better, getting more balls. They weren’t conceding 50-50 balls, so I felt like we improved as the game went, which is what you want to have happen.”
Conkel scored her second of the evening with 25:57 left in the contest. The score came off a corner where Claire Clevenger found Conkel in the box, who headed it into the netting. Then, with 18:01 left, Conkel put a capper on the night with her third goal that rounded out the final.
“They’ve been in big games,” Tieman said. “We want to win that district title and we want to get further than we’ve ever been before, which would be [the] regional [tournament]. That’s our goal. Our focus was getting here. Now I’m gonna say, Alright, let’s run the table.’ Let’s just bring it and play fearlessly. There’s two ways to play. There’s playing not to lose and there’s playing to win. If you play not to lose, you’re playing with fear. If you play to win, you’re playing fearlessly. And that’s what we have to do in the coming game.”
While Rock Hill’s season comes to a close, Minford advances to a Division III district championship game at 8 p.m., Thursday at Valley. There, the Falcons will meet Fairfield — a 1-0 winner over Eastern Brown.
“I feel like we’re in a better position to match up with [Fairfield] a little better than we have in the past,” Tieman said. “They’re a quality program. You never know what will happen. It’s the tournament. It’s a good time of year.”
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