The Perryville girls soccer team has scored in bunches to start their season. Leading up to their third game of the year on Monday, the Pirates may have exceeded even the wildest imagination of their coach, scoring 17 goals combined in victories over Sikeston and Saxony Lutheran.
“It’s not just one person,” Perryville soccer coach Jerry Fulton said. “You can stop one of us, but there’s always someone else that can step up and score.”
As Perryville showed on Monday, they can also win a low-scoring contest.
Leah Buerck scored the lone goal four minutes in and the Pirates hung on as they defeated Farmington 1-0 at the Bank of Missouri Soccer Complex.
“A win is a win,” Fulton said. “I thought we had the better of the play early, but you have to give Farmington credit, they battled the entire game. That’s a good team we just beat.”
As Fulton said, Perryville dominated much of the play in the 10 minutes of the first half and was able to get one in the back of the net in a flash. Kyla Schnurbusch fed a pass past a pair of Farmington defenders and Buerck outran both of them, dribbled around the sprinting Knight goalkeeper for an easy tap in.
The goal was the ninth for Buerck in just three games this season. Fulton really likes what he is seeing from his senior forward early this year.
“I’m liking everything she’s doing from her play on the field to her leadership,” he said. “She’s playing really well right now.”
Perryville (3-0) certainly looked primed to run away with yet another game, but Farmington held tough on multiple occasions, not Buerck or any of her teammates to have a close, clean opportunity to score.
Rachel Riney fed Carlie Holdman a pass late in the first half that was broken up by a Farmington defender. Farmington sophomore Emma Collins banged a shot off the post minutes later in the 35th minute. In reality, Farmington had very few true chances on the net.
“You could tell they were running everything through (Collins) and I thought that Kyla Laurentius played really well to contain her and not give her too many open and free looks. Overall, I thought our defense played really well. One thing we have this year is speed at all positions.”
Probably the best chance that the Knights had to tie the game came in the 53rd minute. Collins had a close range shot inside the box that was pushed away by senior Adrienne Weibrecht and then cleared by a Pirate defender. Weibrecht made five saves in the game, but none bigger than that one.
“That was probably a game-saving play,” Fulton said.
Perryville continued to put pressure on the Farmington defense. Perryville ended the game with nine shots.
Buerck fed Holdman down the right sideline and she had a shot that was saved, came right back to her and was saved again.
“It’s frustrating to have that many chances and not score, but that’s soccer sometimes,” Fulton said. “You have to find other ways to win and we did that tonight.”
