On a night when Ozark’s two senior team members were missing, two freshmen stepped up to lead the Lady Tigers to a 4-2 victory in Camdenton. Freshman center forward Megan Gunnels put Ozark on the board first in the 11th minute when she finished a ball received just inside the 18 from freshman forward Alicia Collard . Camdenton’s senior forward Lindsey Sinclair (#4) tied the game at 1-1 in the 29th minute when she skillfully placed a PK into the corner of the net. The penalty kick attempt was awarded after she had chipped a ball over the Ozark keeper’s hands. The chip shot hit the right post and bounced infront of the goal where an Ozark defender was called for inadvertently handling the ball while trying to clear it off the line. In the 37th minute, Collard beat her defender down the left side and sent a beautiful ball over the Camdenton keeper and into the far side of the goal to give the lead back to Ozark. Gunnels scored the eventual game winner for Ozark in the final two minutes of the first half when she got a foot on a loose ball that was found in the middle of a pack of Camdenton defenders inside the six yard box and knocked it past the keeper to take a 3-1 lead into halftime.
Camdenton was not going down without a fight. Junior Megan Manzer (#3) beat her defender down the left side in the 49th minute and hit a great shot to cut Ozark’s lead to 3-2. Camdenton, with a much deeper bench, continued to press forward against the Lady Tigers, but the Tiger defense held strong and thwarted all efforts from the Laker’s to score. Alicia Collard beat her defender down the left side again in the 71st minute and hit another beautiful shot to nail down the victory for the Tigers with a final score of 4-2. With the win, the Ozark Lady Tigers finished the regular season and head into the district tournament with a record of 12-8-0.
In the JV game, Ozark freshman Taylor Jordan gave the Tigers the early lead with a goal midway through the first half. The Camdenton JV squad fought back in the second half and managed to put two shots into the back of the net to defeat the Ozark JV team by a final score of 2-1. Although it was a tough loss for the Ozark Lady Tigers in their final game of the season, they were able to walk off the field with pride in what they had accomplished this year. Their final record for the season for this team that basically included twelve freshmen and four juniors was 14-5-1, which included winning the Ozark JV tournament and the Kickapoo JV tournament, outscoring their opponents by a margin of 41-16 and securing 11 shutouts. Congratulations on a great JV season!
