W’boro’s 3-goal rally stumps Byrd

A soaking wet Waynesboro team came back to beat William Byrd 4-3 in the Region III quarterfinals on Tuesday.

“This is the furthest I’ve gone as a coach and a player,” said Waynesboro coach Dani Almarode.

The Little Giants scored first nine minutes into play, but was offsides and the goal was disallowed.

“All of the girls were lined up at the line so it’s hard to see how that was offsides,” Almarode said. “That got the girls fired up though.”

The Terriers took control of the game from there, scoring two goals within five minutes of each other, one coming from Amanda Hollandsworth and the other off a rebound shot from Haley Overstreet.

Less than a minute after the second Byrd goal, Waynesboro’s Vicki Andersen recovered the ball after it was deflected off the goal posts and tapped in the first goal of the game for the Little Giants. The Terriers countered with a third goal from Kelli Kitchens, a long shot from just outside the box, skimming the fingers of Waynesboro keeper Kate Garber. 

With Byrd leading 3-1 at the half, the Little Giants might have hung their heads at that point, but that wasn’t the case.

“At halftime the girls were in high spirits,” Almarode said. “They [Byrd] weren’t doing anything that made us think we couldn’t beat them.”

The Little Giants weren’t about to let the Terriers get away with stealing a regional game from them.

As the rain drizzled down, Waynesboro came out in the second half ready for action. Less than nine minutes into it, Andersen tapped in another goal for the Little Giants, catching Byrd’s keeper Emily Cook too far out of the net. Three minutes later and Waynesboro tied it up at three with a goal from Ali Zook from just inside the box.

“Knowing that it was a physical game, plus the weather conditions, we had to focus,” Almarode said. “This team gets it done when they want it.”

A tied game had the Terriers playing more aggressive, but the Little Giants kept their heads down and pushed on as the rain started to pour down on the Waynesboro field.

“At first we were talking about how wet it was, you can see the puddles, and we knew that the ball wasn’t going to bounce,” senior Little Giant Taylor Sayre said. “We had to be on our toes. We know how to play in the rain.”

Byrd had a few good chances to take back the lead, but the ball was always just shy of the net.

“These girls don’t give up,” Almarode said. “They have more desire and want to play soccer and to go hard, you can see it in their eyes.”

With ten minutes left in the game, the Terriers’ aggression got the best of them as one Byrd player took a yellow card to the bench. Thirty seconds down the road and the Little Giants took back the game, as come-back kid Sayre knocked in a shot off of a direct kick from Zook, putting the score at 4-3 for Waynesboro.

“I was thinking, ‘just please go in ball’,” Sayre said. “We needed that goal, this is my senior year and we want to keep playing.”

Waynesboro plays Jefferson Forrest at Amherst High School on Thursday in the Region III semifinals. If the Little Giants win, they advance to the finals and get a birth in the Group AA tournament.

“It’s regionals so it’s definitely not going to be easy,” said Sayre. “If we keep playing the game we have been, then we’ll win.”