FLOWERY BRANCH — A cheering crowd at Falcons Field and a smiling coach were all the evidence the Flowery Branch girls soccer team needed to know their 2017 campaign had been a huge success.
They really didn’t seem to be phased by the fact that at the final whistle on Tuesday against defending state champion McIntosh the 5-2 deficit meant their best-ever state playoff run in program history had come to an end.
“The crowd was great and it meant a lot to us,” senior keeper Kelsey Mathis said. “They kept cheering us on.”
Flowery Branch coach Katie Scali went a little deeper.
“I’m really proud of them to have made it this far. No one expected us to be here,” Scali said. “The seniors in particular have set the bar high for future teams. Not because of how far we went but because of how they play the game and what they taught the younger players.”
Mathis more than led by example on Tuesday. She stopped 16 shots, more than half-a-dozen from literal point-blank range, and kept the Lady Falcons within striking distance.
“Kelsey was outstanding back there,” Scali said.
Flowery Branch was dominated for the first 77 minutes by the Lady Chiefs being outshot 25-0 in that span and controlled the possessions just 10 percent of the time with 75 percent of the action taking place on its side of the midfield. The speed of McIntosh played a huge factor as the Lady Falcons could get very little going offensively.
Four goals by McIntosh senior forward Taylor Malasek was more than enough for the Lady Chiefs.
“We just really had no answer for her,” Scali said. “They were quick and fast. We knew they were good coming in and they showed that.”
Both teams came in as defensive-minded squads. Flowery Branch (13-7-1) had allowed just 32 goals all season. The five McIntosh goals matched a season-high allowed (Buford and Winder-Barrow) for the Lady Falcons.
McIntosh (14-6-2) had allowed just 17 goals, with 13 shutouts, including five straight. The two Flowery Branch goals were the first ones allowed in the playoffs and the first in nearly a month by the Lady Chiefs.
Despite the defensive nature of both teams, both were looking to push the ball early. The Lady Falcons had a close offsides call negate a possible breakaway chance while the Lady Chiefs produced the first scoring chance in the opening three minutes.
Three minutes later, however, the Lady Chiefs’ Tariah Miller gave McIntosh the early 1-0 lead it would never relinquish with a blast past Mathis off a throw-in in the 6th minute.
It became the Malasek show from there. Malasek scored twice in a 66 second span, first on a low blast past Mathis, then on a breakaway after a defensive breakdown by the Lady Falcons for a 3-0 lead with 16:55 left in the first half.
Malasek made it a hat trick 10 minutes later gathering a long pass and beating a Branch defender in the box and then Mathis for a 4-0 advantage in the 35th minute.
Flowery Branch managed to press the ball into McIntosh territory just twice with any scoring opportunities but failed to create any shots on goal and no corners in the opening 40 minutes.
The two teams’ battled back-and-forth for most of the second half with Malasek tallying her fourth goal for a 5-0 lead with 13:54 left in the match. The Lady Falcons did not quit, however.
A minute later Flowery Branch finally got on the board as freshman Glorismel Chavez gathered in a long pass and then beat McIntosh keeper Emily Lopez to cut lead to 5-1 with 12:42 left. The Lady Falcons struck again two minutes later when sophomore Caroline Wysocki beat Lopez to trim it to 5-2 with just over 10 minutes left.
“I was real pleased to see them battle back like that. They could have quit but they didn’t. That was a great way for us to finish,” Scali said.
