SPARTA – It has been a season of firsts for the Highland girls soccer program— most notably, they reached nine wins in a season for the first time in their history. Their six losses was their lowest total ever.
On Oct. 24, the season came to an end, but not before they had one more first. The ninth-seeded Scots played in their first-ever home playoff game, losing to eleventh-seeded Licking Valley 5-0 in their Division II district tournament first-round match.
Saturday’s loss takes nothing away from this season, especially since the Scots have a strong middle school and youth program developed by their current varsity coach.
“We try to make sure that the program— from youth to middle school to high school— is uniform throughout,” Highland coach Anthony Wilson said. “We need to be doing and teaching the same things and we’re getting there.”
As the program has grown at the other levels, so has the varsity.
“I’ve been here since I was a sophomore,” Highland senior Peyton Carpenter said. “We added on every single year. We knew what our goals were and we shot through them this year.”
Although they lost to Licking Valley, Carpenter and her teammates point to a game against a different Licking County League team as the highlight of the season.
“It was our (2-1) win against Licking Heights (on Oct. 6), because they beat teams like this (Licking Valley) and we beat them,” Carpenter said. “It was such a close game too.”
For the seniors, the time to shine had come.
“We came together and decided this was the year,” Highland senior Cori Milburn said. “We wanted it to be our year this year, and we made it happen.”
For Milburn and her fellow seniors, the end was bittersweet.
“When we first started, it was nothing like it is today,” Milburn said. “Now, we care about each other and the team so much.”
Each agrees that the work they have put in has helped to lay a foundation for the future of Scots soccer.
“It is the energy of the team that I am going to miss the most,” Carpenter said. “The program is going to keep building from here.”
The Panthers struck quickly, with Reagan Campbell scoring less than two minutes into the game. Campbell then assisted Licking Valley’s Olivia Wells on her goal at 27:36 of the first half to jump out to a 2-0 advantage.
After Licking Valley’s Emily Redfern scored a pair of Panther goals at 16:06 and 6:11 of the opening half, the Scots showed the type of play that lifted them to 9-6-1 in 2020. Highland’s defense held the Panthers to a single goal in the game’s final 46 minutes.
