BY ALLEN LAMOUNTAIN

STAR CORRESPONDENT

In their final tuneup before regular-season action starts August 22 at West Greene, the Elizabethton Lady Cyclones took the pitch at the Stone Castle against Tennessee High on Thursday for a scrimmage.

The Lady Vikings firepower was evident as they scored a 5-1 win with goals from five different players.

“This is why we schedule these scrimmages against 3A schools,” Lady Cyclones head coach Bill McClay said. “We learned a lot today about what will work and what won’t work.

“Early on we got split in the same way defensively twice. We’re learning and as the first half went on we got our shape better and had several opportunities at the goal. But as the match went on we got more tentative to move forward.”

The first three minutes saw each team score with THS taking a 1-nil lead in the first minutes as Samarah Pace scored on a left-footed shot after taking a diagonal feed from Laura Lavinder to beat Cyclones freshman goalkeeper Morgan Heaton.

A Vikings penalty in their defensive zone gave EHS a free kick and senior Lexi Brown struck for the tying goal from 22 yards out as she beat Vikings keeper Bridget Flaherty high and to her right.

That was the high water mark for the Cyclones offensively as they would get just seven total shots on goal with Brown getting three of those. The Vikings got first-half goals from Sophie Arnold and Mya Howren for a 3-1 halftime advantage.

Early in the second half Emma Arnold scored after the Cyclones backline failed to clear the ball safely from its penalty area and Arnold took possession at the 30-yard line.

She weaved her way into the penalty area and let fly with a hard shot that struck net and gave THS a 4-1 lead.

Cyclone senior Maggie Johnson was frustrated on a point-blank shot late in the second half as she hesitated a moment before pulling the trigger and the ball was covered up by Flaherty on a nice save.

Fellow senior Kalen Shell suffered a similar fate as her left-footed shot was snuffed out by Flaherty as well.

The Vikings put the final goal in the net in the closing minute with Lavinder scoring on a breakaway.

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Tennessee High 5-1

EHS 1 0 – 1

THS 3 2 – 5

First Half

T – Pace (assist Lavinder) 1:00

E – Brown (FK, 22 yds) 3:00

T – S. Arnold (unassisted) 6:00

T – Howren (unassisted) 9:00

Second Half

T – E. Arnold (unassisted) 41:00

T – Lavinder (unassisted) 79:00