Yellow Jackets continue to race through region play

THOMASVILLE — The Thomas County Central boys and girls soccer teams faced Veterans late last week and put on a show. Once again the Yellow Jackets took down a region opponent with the girls winning 2-0 and the boys snagging a 5-3 victory.

For the girls, this victory continues several streaks for them. They remain undefeated in both non-region and region play, posting a 6-0 record. They now have a streak of five shutout victories in a row, not having allowed a goal since their season opening win over Colquitt that ended 10-2. and they have yet to allow a goal against a region opponent. Against Veterans, head coach Tony Voyles said it was all about defensive pressure.

“The difference in this game was that we pressured every single touch they had. Whether it was in the midfield, the defense or up top we pressed them and forced them to make mistakes with the ball and that’s probably the best I’ve ever seen us do that as a team. That just changed the game. They could build no kind of attack.”

That statement was emphasized by the stat line that showed Veterans attempted only nine passes in their attacking third of the field. The intense pressure from the Lady Jackets led to multiple chances. Central’s ace scorer Bailey Maroney put the ball in the back of the net to open the scoring and Mikayla Voyles followed that up with a goal of her own to give Central the 2-0 victory.

The Lady Jackets have proven to be a great all-around team. Central has outscored their opponents 32-2 in just six games.

The boys made their game a bit more interesting. The Yellow Jackets went up 2-0 in the first half, but allowed Veterans back in the game and went into half time tied at two. Coming out of the break, Central scored to go up 3-2, but an unfortunate hand ball gave Veterans a PK, which they capitalized on to tie the score again. It wasn’t until late in the game that Central was able to net a pair of goals for their first win over Veterans in a long time.

For the five goals scored there were just two goal scorers for the Yellow Jackets. Lee Duvergel netted a pair of goals, while Oliver Perez put three in the back of the net for the hat trick.

This was really the first time these Yellow Jackets, who have posted a 4-1-1 record so far this season, have been tested. This is a very solid Veterans team and coach Voyles was happy to see his guys make the proper adjustments at the half.

“We’ve not had to fight back in too many games this year. They responded so well. They never got their head down when we gave up those two goals to let them come back and tie it up, then listened to us at halftime, had a good attitude coming in even though we’d given up those two goals late in the half. They had a good attitude at half time and listened to the adjustments that we made and then went out and executed perfectly.”