Young Cougars confident
By ROD GIPSON
Published January 15, 2006
Despite battling injuries and inexperience this season, Durant managed a solid regular season and heads into the district tournament as the second seed.
The host school, Durant (8-4-5) just missed out on the top seed. In fact, the Cougars handed No. 1 seed Sarasota Riverview its only loss of the season. But ties and a couple of key losses dropped the Cougars to second, where it will open district play Tuesday against Plant City.
Durant is coming off an 8-0 win over Brandon and a 2-1 comeback victory against Plant. Against Brandon, Gabi Rivera paced the Cougars with three goals. In the Plant win, Lisa Hayman scored twice off Rivera assists as Plant rallied from a 1-0 halftime deficit.
"We feel like we're playing pretty well at times. We lost three games in the Sarasota tournament alone," Durant coach Ron Evans said. "Plus, we're a pretty young team. We have eight new freshman players this year."
Desiree Mendoza is one freshman Durant will be without during the tournament. A center-forward, Mendoza has missed the past month with a knee (ACL) injury. She will be joined on the bench by Dana Conrad, a fullback who went down in practice last week with a bruised Achilles tendon.
Still, Evans likes his teams' chances.
"Anybody of the seven teams in the district could win," he said. "Nobody blew anybody out in the district. Our chances depend on which (Durant) team shows up. If we play like we can, we should do okay."
NO LOOKING BACK: Wharton ended its regular season on a down note, falling 2-1 to Sickles on Friday night, but the Wildcats have plenty of reasons not to dwell on the loss. The most notable is that the Class 5A, District 8 tournament kicks off Tuesday, where the Wildcats own the second seed.
The other is the Wildcats' overall dominance this season. Wharton went 15-2-1 during the regular season, losing only to strong squads Sickles and Bloomingdale in early December.
With a strong goalkeeper, playmakers on offense and a solid defense, the Wildcats could be looking at another meeting with rival and top seed Bloomingdale in the district title match. Wharton opens the tournament against No. 7 Armwood. A win would send Wharton to a match against the Newsome/Tampa Bay Tech winner.
Wharton's Aline Linard has been outstanding this season as a scorer and team player. Linard, who assisted on Jessica Wooden's goal against Sickles, has 16 goals on the season. Linard is fourth in the county in scoring and third in assists with 10.