Gallery by Chris Jackson
Oak Hill – Two 40-minutes halves were not enough time to decide the Class AAA Region 3, Section 2 girls semifinal clash between No. 2 seed Oak Hill and No. 3 seed Greenbrier East.
Neither were two 10-minute overtime periods.
The play of Oak Hill’s senior keeper Eden Gilkey, however, was enough to decide things when the match went to penalty kicks.
Recording a pair of stops on the final two tries by Greenbrier East, Gilkey secured the Red Devils a spot in Thursday’s sectional championship match against Woodrow Wilson.
“It is a special moment for Eden Gilkey. For only playing goalkeeper for two years, she is really under-rated. She has kept us in ball games all year long,” Oak Hill first year head coach Gerald Wilburn said. “You couldn’t ask for more out of her. She played and hollered all night. She kept people motivated and moving around.”
Although Oak Hill struggled all night with East’s athletic and physical front line, the Red Devils made the most of their opportunities.
Sophomore Jade Babkirk put Oak Hill in front 1-0 in the 23rd minute when she pushed a shot through the hands of the East keeper.
As would be the case all night in regulation, when Oak Hill would score, East would answer right back.
Less than two minutes later, freshman Grace Boettner scored the equalizer and the match wemt to the half tied 1-1.
Three minutes into the second half, a corner kick from senior Samiah Lynch found freshman Emmy Harlan who knocked it in for a 2-1 lead.
The goal was one of the few offensive opportunities that Oak Hill would have in the second half.
A corner kick by the Spartans in the 51st minute evened the match for a second time when sophomore Myrna Hamilton dropped the ball back freshman Ryan White who converted the try.
“They kept us on our heels all night and we really held on. I am not going to say we tried to take it to penalties, but we just couldn’t get anything going offensively,” Wilburn said. “With kids out and especially with midfield kids that were running a lot, I couldn’t push forward. We played a little more defense than I wanted to.”
East could not score the remainder of regulation and could not find the back of the net in the overtime periods.
“In both of the 10-minute overtime periods, I thought we kept the ball a lot. We had chances, but we just couldn’t get it in. We hit the crossbar, but that is what soccer is,” Greenbrier East head coach Michael Dotson said.
However, East was first to find the mark in the best-of-5 penalty kicks. After a stop on the first Oak Hill shot, Caroline Dotson converted for East’s first advantage of the match.
Lynch converted for the Red Devils, but the Spartans maintained their advantage when White was true on her effort.
With the tension building and fans on edge, Hannah White scored on a deflected shot for Oak Hill. When the next shot for East went just over the crossbar, the score was even with two shots remaining for each team.
Sophomore Samantha Dean stepped up and drilled a shot in the back of the net to put Oak Hill ahead for good.
Gilkey would seal the win with two stops on the final East attempts.
“That is a hard one to take for the girls to end on. Give Oak Hill credit, they played hard. They played really good defensively and they made some nice stops,” Dotson said. “We have played three times this year and all three games have been back and forth, really good games. It was nice to be part of it.”
“My emotions are up there. This is a big win for the girls, and I am proud of them,” Wilburn said. “We struggled a little bit all year with injuries especially. Tonight, we struggled with cramping. I was down three kids all night long. One with an ankle, two with bad cramps, but we pulled it off. That is the main thing. We survived a lot of things tonight and hung on. I am really proud of the seniors for stepping up and playing hard.”
