Trojans soccer dropped their last home game to Cheyenne on Tuesday, 2-0.
It all lined up right for the Trojans with home field advantage in the battle for second placeTrojans. Everything went their way up until the second half.
The first half saw the Trojans (12-5-1 overall, 6-2-1 Sunset League) battle hard for the ball with either team getting little advantage until Cheyenne (10-5-4, 7-1-1) drew first blood, scoring midway through the 40-minute half.
A one-point lead at half was hardly something the Trojans couldn’t come back from, but Cheyenne proved to be stubborn in the second half, making no mistakes and not giving any ground on defense.
The Trojans had a hard time penetrating the Cheyenne defense and when they did, they had a difficult time taking shots. Vaniah Vitto, Kaitlyn Carrington and Sydney Dennis for Pahrump all did a valiant job of getting the ball into the goal box.
But that was the extent of the offense and the shots were not there. Part of the problem was when Pahrump was in scoring position, Cheyenne would flood their box with defenders, and the Trojans couldn’t get the defenders extended enough to shoot.
Usually, when that happens the girls could kick the ball back to a midfielder and try again, but Cheyenne reset their defense too quickly and didn’t allow for additional shots.
Cheyenne was then able to isolate and extend our defense late in the second half with just 11 minutes to go in the game to put the game on ice, 2-0.
The loss puts Pahrump firmly in third, which means next Wednesday they will start the playoffs against Virgin Valley (10-7-2, 8-1-0), the Sunrise League second seed, at 4 p.m. at the Bettye Wilson Soccer Complex in Las Vegas.
Trojans coach Julie Carrington is confident her team could take them.
“We played our first game of the season at a tournament and won 3-0 without a player from our starting lineup,” she said.
Contact sports editor Vern Hee at vhee@pvtimes.com