Consol soccer teams set for area round

Lake Highland graduate Stoney Pryor won't be rooting for his alma mater Friday.

Pryor's A&M Consolidated Lady Tigers will face Lake Highland in the Class 5A area soccer playoffs at 5:30 p.m. Friday at Waco ISD Stadium.

"My Dad still lives up there, and I've got a lot of friends in the Lake Highlands area," said the Consol girls head soccer coach. "Many a week, I would pull for them, but not this particular week."

Consol (18-5-2) shut out Mesquite Horn 4-0 in the bi-district round Tuesday. Lake Highlands (15-4-1) advanced by beating Garland 3-2.

"I got the feeling that there was some stress in the game," Pryor said of Lake Highlands' bi-district victory. "Their coach said she got three more gray hairs and two more wrinkles."

Lake Highlands swept through District 9-5A unbeaten to win the league. Brinkley Field leads the Lady Wildcats in scoring with 15 goals and one assist, matching the number of goals opponents have scored all season against them. Lake Highlands has outscored teams 72-15 this year.

Consol and Lake Highlands faced each other in the 2009 regional quarterfinals. The Lady Wildcats won 4-0.

Last year, the Lady Tigers suffered a disappointing shootout loss to Garland Sachse in the area round. That one still strikes close to home.

"I try to make that positive now, but we probably should have won it in regulation," Pryor said. "We could have won in the shootout, but it didn't work out that way for us. We've practiced the shootout a little primarily to get them over it. A shootout is playing soccer, so it's not really anything different. Psychologically, it's something you have to work through. We can score goals in a shootout, and we can score in regulation."

The Consol boys team (14-10) will take on McKinney Boyd (16-4-3) in Ennis, which went 12-1-1 in 10-5A to win the district championship. Joe Haines had Boyd's only goal in a 1-0 victory over Dallas W.T. White on Tuesday in bi-district. Boyd averaged two goals per game while allowing just 15 goals all season.

Consol coach Chris Kovacs has an idea of Boyd's approach.

"They look like they are an extremely strong defensive team," Kovacs said. "They've been in a lot of tight games, a lot of 1-0 games where they have come out on top. We might not get many opportunities. Let's just hope we take advantage of the few that we are able to create."

Kovacs is not looking for a detailed scouting report. He'll depend on the play of his team.

"Boyd is going to do what they do, and we just need to execute what we do best," Kovacs said. "If we can do that, hopefully we'll give them a game and come out on top. We can't get sucked into playing someone else's game. We've got to play our game."

The Brenham girls team (17-6-4) will play Port Neches-Groves in the 4A sectional round at 8 p.m. Friday at Humble's Charles Street Stadium. The Cubettes outscored Little Cypress-Mauriceville 5-2 in a shootout in the area playoffs to advance. Kayla Evans had a goal and an assist. PNG advanced with a 3-0 victory over Willis.