Lady Irish, CCS play to scoreless soccer tie

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

MacKenzie Nadeau had a simple answer for what her Notre Dame soccer team needs to work on to earn the District 7-A/AA regular-season title.

"Finishing," she said.

The Lady Irish have one more opportunity to get the win necessary to claim that title. Their opponent Tuesday night, Chattanooga Christian, can do nothing but wait after the two teams played to a scoreless tie at Notre Dame.

Notre Dame is scheduled to play at Signal Mountain on Sept. 24, and the winner of that match will be the regular-season champion.

"It's just frustrating," said Nadeau, a senior midfielder. "We're going to work on finishing this next week in practice, and we're going to win no matter what next Tuesday.

"We won't walk off that field with a loss."

Should the teams play to a tie next week, seeding for the district tournament will be decided by coin tosses among the three schools.

The Lady Irish had two opportunities early Tuesday, but a couple of early breakaways by Emma Higgins were saved by CCS keeper Kendra Jolly. The Lady Chargers had some chances as the match went on, including a shot by Beata Brock that keeper Taylor Green tipped over the crossbar.

"That was a beautiful save," CCS coach Cal Sneller said. "We did a good job of adapting as the match went on; early on we were giving them too many chances, but Kendra did well organizing our defense. We have a young bunch back there."

Notre Dame was issued four yellow cards during the match.

"There were a couple where I didn't see a lot happening there, but I think the ref was just trying to keep things from getting physical," Notre Dame coach Jim Schermerhorn said. "I thought we played pretty well tonight, but we're going to have to work on finishing this week because we have to win next week. We were unlucky a few times tonight."

Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6311. Follow him at twitter.com/genehenleytfp.