MINERAL WELLS – The Brownwood Lady Lions appeared to control the momentum throughout much of their Region I-4A area playoff game against District 7 champion Benbrook here Tuesday, but a couple of brief mental lapses proved fatal in a 2-1 season-ending overtime defeat.
The Lady Lions (16-6-1) grabbed the lead in the first half on a Braycee Lee goal off an assist from Molly Oliver at the 17:35 mark, but were unable to find the net again. Brownwood fired off several shots directly at the keeper for Benbrook (16-5-2), including five in the final six minutes of regulation as the Lady Lions were attempting to avoid overtime.
“They ran a sweeper on us which is not something we’re used to,” said Lady Lions third-year head coach Alexis Mosqueda. “We knew that going in, we studied film, and Braycee hit her ball perfectly. If we could get a shot off, rolling on the ground and far enough away from their keeper, she wasn’t going to move toward it and she didn’t. If we would have got more shots like that this game would have been completely different.”
It appeared the Lady Lions’ advantage grew to two goals just 38 seconds into the second half after a Benbrook hand ball deep on its end of the field, but it turned out not to be.
Kennedi Johnson’s penalty kick was deflected by the Benbrook keeper, and Johnson scored on the rebound. However, the officials waved off the goal stating a Brownwood player had stepped inside the box before Johnson fired her first attempt – nullifying play from that point forward, according to Mosqueda.
Still seemingly in control, a shot by Oliver ricocheted off the upright with 21:26 left in regulation, which triggered a possession for Benbrook that resulted in the tying goal by Campbell Cox, who found a hole in the Brownwood defense with 20:09 left.
Heading to overtime for the second game in a row, another defensive miscue for the Lady Lions just 20 seconds into the extra session allowed Cox to score again and put Benbrook up for good, 2-1.
“We started off really strong and it was good first half for us, but we got lazy and you can’t get lazy in a playoff game,” Mosqueda said. “It’ll bite you for sure and it did for us tonight. The two goals, they were wide open. No. 9 (Cox) has committed to Harding University and is by far their best player and she wasn’t going to miss those. We shouldn’t have given them opportunities like that but we did.”
The Lady Lions, the third seed out of District 5, finished their season with a 14th consecutive bi-district championship.
“I was really pleased with the way our season went,” Mosqueda said. “We had such great leadership this year from our seniors. It’s going to be a huge hole for us to fill next year, but I look forward to all the good things those girls will do. They’ve set such a great foundation for this program and the underclassmen have very big shoes to fill, but I look forward to seeing how they do next year.”
