Lady Cats top Berrien, 2-0, in soccer

Published 7:10 pm Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Bainbridge’s Longeshia Emanuel’s shot beats the Berrien goalkeeper.|Submitted

Bainbridge’s Longeshia Emanuel’s shot beats the Berrien goalkeeper.|Submitted

The Bainbridge High School Lady Cats varsity soccer team went to Nashville, Ga., on Friday afternoon and came away with a hard fought 2-0 victory over the Berrien County Lady Rebels. Berrien County (9-4) is the first-place team in Region 1-AA.

Bainbridge sophomore forward Longeshia Emanuel scored both goals for the Lady Cats, who improved to 6-9 for the season.

In the 34th minute, Emanuel took a pass from senior midfielder Kathleen Victor at the top of the penalty area on the right, dribbled diagonally to the left and delivered a crossing shot from 8 yards out to give Bainbridge a halftime lead.

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Late in the contest, Emanuel again finished a shot for the Lady Cats to put the game away. In the 77th minute, sophomore midfielder Jennifer Becerra sent a lofted pass down to Emanuel, who gathered the ball off a miss-touch by a Berrien County defender, and raced diagonally to the right side before delivering a goal shot from 6 yards out.

Bainbridge coach Chip Ariail said that sophomore goalkeeper Kameron Landeen helped preserve the wins with two key stops late in the game. Landeen finished with six saves to earn the shutout.

“Against a good opponent, I thought our girls came out and played aggressively throughout the contest,” Ariail said. “Kameron had several nice saves at key moments in the game, and I thought Jennifer worked well with Caitlin in the middle, as did junior Jerilyn Jones and sophomore Aaliyah Mitchell.”

Airial said that other players who gave especially-good efforts included Victor, Asia Irving, Amedelia Barrios, Isis Crawford, Sonja Francis, Lilianna Gomez, Derrical Williams and Jasmine Taylor.

Bainbridge was scheduled to travel to face Brooks County on Tuesday, before returning home to host Berrien County on Friday night. Kickoff is at 5 p.m. at Centennial Field, and it will also be “Senior Night” for the Lady Cats.