Dynasty dwindling : RHS girls take first league loss since 2002
Posted on Thursday, April 3, 2008
ROGERS - There have been signs all season that the Rogers Lady Mounties were not the dominant soccer program they've been the last six years.
Perhaps the most telling came Tuesday night at Harmon Field in Fayetteville.
Rogers lost a 7 A-West Conference game for the first time since 2002 when Fayetteville defeated the Lady Mounties 1-0 in penalty kicks.
"It's been a long time," Rogers coach Chris Leshinski said.
The Lady Mounties were coached by Jeff Barker the last time they lost a conference game, in what was then called the Class AAAAA Region I Conference. Ironically, Barker, an assistant with the varsity boys, will return to the head girls coaching position next season when the school district splits into two high schools and Leshinski becomes head coach at Rogers Heritage.
Going into Tuesday night's game, the Lady Mounties were 36-0-1 in conference play since the beginning of the 2003 sea- son. The tie came in 2005 to Fayetteville.
The Lady Mounties have won five straight conference titles as well as three state titles from 2004-06.
Rogers and Fayetteville played to a scoreless tie Tuesday though 80 minutes of soccer and two 10-minute overtime periods before going to penalty kicks.
The loss dropped Rogers (10-4, 2-1 ) into third place in the 7 A-West behind Bentonville (19-1-1, 4-0 ) and Fayetteville (12-3, 4-1 ).
A share of the conference title is not out of reach for the Lady Mounties though.
Rogers hosts Fort Smith Northside on Friday at Gates Stadium before playing Bentonville on Tuesday at the Tiger Athletic Complex. A win for the Lady Mounties against BHS could result in a perfect three-way tie for first place. Bentonville beat Fayetteville earlier in the year 1-0.
"We still have a chance to share a piece of the championship," Leshinski said. "It's still out there. That's what the girls are going to be playing for. It's going to be tough."
Four of Rogers' last five games have ended in penalty kicks with the Lady Mounties winning two of them. Rogers beat Bixby, Okla., and Springfield (Mo. ) Glendale in PKs before losing to Springfield Kickapoo and Fayetteville.
All of the finishes have advantages for the stretch run, Leshinski said.
The advantage is that since the 7 A-West Conference games are not having ties, it gives the Lady Mounties ample chances to work on penalty kicks.
"We're definitely getting the training," Leshinski said.
Leshinski did hint that he might make some changes to the Lady Mounties' offense in an effort to jump-start it.
"We've got to figure out ways to put the ball in the goal," Leshinski said. "If we have to change the lineup for the rest of the year and see if we can get some more scoring threats up top or if we have to play a different style of soccer, that's what we're going to have to re-evaluate in the next couple of days. "Mounties Rogers coach Steve Peck took nothing away from the performance of Fayetteville's Kevin Ellstrand in the Bulldogs' 1-0 win against the Mounties.
He did say his players could have made life a little more difficult for the Bulldogs goalkeeper.
"We couldn't have scored last night on anybody because every time we kicked the ball it went to the goalie," Peck said. "(The newspaper ) made it sound like he made some great saves, and he made some great saves, but for every one that was great, there were two that were kicked right to him - shots that I could have stopped."
The Mounties (11-4-1, 1-2 in 7 A-West ) had 12 shots on goal but came up empty each time.
Rogers slipped to sixth place in the ever-changing 7 A-West standings, making Friday night's conference game against seventh-place Fort Smith Northside ever more important.
The Grizzlies are 2-7-1 overall and 1-4 in league play but their record is deceiving. Three of Northside's conference losses were 1-0 scores against Bentonville, Fayetteville and Van Buren. The Grizzlies lost to Springdale 4-0 on Tuesday.
Rogers beat Northside 4-2 in Fort Smith in a nonconference game earlier in the year.
"They're a scrappy little team," Peck said. "They never quit."
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online
