Platte County’s Lily Kytasaari has a free kick in the Lady Pirates’ 1-0 postseason loss to Pembroke Hill at Smithville High School on May 15.
The Platte County girls’ soccer team (11-12) couldn’t overcome an early goal in the district semifinals, being eliminated by Pembroke Hill (10-13-1) on May 15.
Platte County went 4-3 down the final 7-game stretch with two of the three losses being to Pembroke Hill. The Lady Raiders won 2-1 back on May 1 before knocking the Lady Pirates out of the Class 3 District 8 Tournament with a 1-0 triumph.
Pembroke Hill made its first shot attempt of the day, scoring in the seventh minute. Platte County went into the break down 1-0 and was more aggressive in the second half, trying to get on the board.
“Throughout the season, whenever we found ourselves down, we never just sat back and just took it, we’re going to go down fighting.” Platte County head girls’ soccer coach Ashlyn Brantley said. “It’s the passion that these girls have and that they put into the game; that’s something you can’t teach or coach, so we’re just happy that they come with that, and they have that.”
Finley Kaser stepped up defensively in the second half as the sophomore goalkeeper had three quick saves in the first 10 minutes after halftime. With the game coming down to the wire, senior Sloan Kassen put Platte County in scoring position but to no prevail.
Kassen had a header in the box in the 60th minute and followed that up with an impressive cross from the left to right side – putting the Lady Raiders’ goalkeeper out of position – but none of her teammates were able to kick it. Kassen had two more shots on goal in the final six minutes, with the last one resulting in a corner kick and another shot on goal by Lauren Stone.
“Even towards the end, we created those opportunities, we just couldn’t finish them. We played how we wanted to play more in that second half, keeping the ball and putting them under pressure, creating those chances again, it just didn’t go our way,” Brantley said.
Ultimately, Platte County was unable to score before the time ran out and its season came to an end. The spring was up-and-down, starting off 0-5, winning seven of the next eight, then losing five of the final eight games of regular season play.
“We came out super slow to start the season and we were all worried at that point, but we started coming together as a team and figuring out what works best for us. We started making that turn and throughout the season they were working with each other and working for each other. We had a few injuries in there and then other people had to step up and it just ran smoothly so this is how we would want to end a season,” Brantley said.
While the Lady Pirates were eliminated in the district semifinals, they started the postseason with a dominant 8-0 win over Kansas City’s East (6-11) on May 13. The No. 3 seed scored six first half goals and ended with a mercy rule margin of victory.