By Kailee Dick
DeKalb County opened postseason play in style Monday night as the Tigerettes shut out White County 5-0 in the first round of the District 7AA tournament.
“I think we played pretty well,” said DeKalb County head coach Dylan Kleparek. “We made some adjustments and they fell into those really well and good execution. It is hard to penetrate through the entire defense in the box. White County played hard and never gave up throughout the whole game.”
DeKalb started off the game aggressively as they scored three first-half goals. Sophomores Candice Rico and Rosio Godinez, and junior Katherine Knowles each found the back of the net to give the Tigerettes a 3-0 advantage at the break.
The second half was the same as DeKalb added two more goals by senior Kendall Davis and another by Knowles.
“We came out a little flat and they were able to press the ball on us,” said Kleparek. “We made a couple of bad decisions of just being too eager instead of staying behind, but we fixed it pretty quickly. I thought we kept the ball in our half pretty well.”
DeKalb will take on Cumberland County Tuesday afternoon in the District 7AA semifinals at Upperman Soccer Complex while White County’s season ends with a record of 3-12-2 and 1-5 in district play.
Cumberland County defeated Upperman as well in the first round of the district tournament 5-0.
“We just got to keep rolling and keep playing our game,” said Kleparek. “At this point, we are going to keep maintaining and going. It was a 3-1 game in the regular season with Cumberland County. We gave up a penalty kick and an own goal in that game, so it is going to be another tough battle. We are going to have to step up and see what we got.”
