East Bladen’s Lady Eagles make the long trip to Kill Devil Hills Saturday to battle Northeastern Coastal champion First Flight in the second round of the NCHSAA Class 2A soccer play-offs. Gametime is 5 p.m.
The distance from East Bladen to First Flight is 287 miles and estimated travel time is over 5 hours.
Senior Lacey Suggs racked up 3 goals and 2 assists Wednesday night as the Lady Eagles blanked Randleman 5-0 in their play-off opener. Suggs has lit up the scoreboard with 40 goals and 26 assists and has now cracked the century mark with 106 points to lead the East Bladen attack.
Sophmore Hannah Devane dished out an assist in the Randleman win and now has 22 assists and 12 goals in just 17 games.
Junior Justyna Gargala scored twice Wednesday to raise her season totals to 12 goals and 18 assists, and senior Abby Ward has dished out 13 assists to go with 9 goals.
Suggs leads the Lady Eagle defense with 149 steals. Right behind her is senior Claire Campbell who anchors the East Bladen backline with 143 steals.
Ward has totaled 120 steals, and Gargala has 104 steals. Devane follows with 90 steals, and freshman Ting Lin has 85 steals. Junior Lexi Mendell has been credited with 80 steals, and freshman Ashley Hardin and junior Cassie Hill both have 77 steals.
Senior Kathryn Cole has 17 wins and 11 shutouts in goal for the Lady Eagles. East Bladen’s only 2 losses all season were to Four County Conference champion and No. 4 seed Clinton.
First Flight rolled through the Northeastern Coastal Conference with a perfect 10-0 record and only gave up 5 goals in league play while scoring 75.
Against a tough non-conference schedule that included Class 3A foe Asheville Reynolds (18-3-4) Class 4A power Greenville Rose (15-3-2), Class 1A power Denver Lincoln Charter (14-6) and three teams from Virginia, the Lady Nighthawks were 7-5-1, outscoring those opponents 50-27.
First Flight defeated the Durham School of the Arts 5-0 in their first round play-off game.
Freshman Ashley Forbes leads the First Flight attack with 25 goals and 9 assists. Sophmore Casey Bouker follows with 20 goals and 9 assists.
Sophmore Alexandra Rodman has tallied 14 goals and 15 assists, and sophmore Brayleigh Jones has contributed 13 goals and a team-high 16 assists. Freshman Greyson Sillies adds 8 goals and 10 assists.
Freshman Codie Patterson has posted 10 shutouts, 11 wins and 78 saves in goal for First Flight. Freshman teammate Katrina Iwashchenko has 6 wins and 6 shutouts.
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