JACKSON County coach Joe Ridgway hopes an Elite Eight run was only the beginning.
The Lady Panthers (14-7) bowed out of the Class AA state tournament with a 9-1 loss at Buford (16-5) Saturday, but Ridgway said the program should only build now after completing the most successful season in school history.
“We’ve got a great group of young ladies, and we’ve got great senior leadership that’s going to be hard to replace,” Ridgway said.
“But I know our young girls are going to step up and realize that we’ve started a strong program here and they’re part of something special and we can just keep moving forward next year and try to be a dominant program throughout the state.”
Jackson County ran into a dominant program Saturday in its Elite Eight pairing with Buford at the Lady Wolves’ plush, artificially-surfaced field.
After beating Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe 2-1 and blasting Pierce County 5-0 to get to the state quarterfinals, the Lady Panthers found themselves in an early hole against the no. 3 seed from the powerful Region 6-AA soccer region. Buford pelted the Lady Panthers with five goals in the first half and kept attacking in the second half as it racked up four more scores.
Ridgway’s assessment of the game was pretty straight-forward.
“We just got outplayed,” Ridgway said. “They were better than we were. We caught some really bad breaks early on, and we could just never recover. They just rode on the momentum and beat us — soundly. I hope they go on and win the whole thing.”
With Jackson County down 8-0, Katie Phillips got free on a breakaway and broke Buford’s postseason shutout streak with a goal in the 70th minute. Prior to that, the Lady Wolves hadn’t given up a goal in 230 state playoff minutes.
“We were happy about it,” Ridgway said. “The girls needed that. They needed something to rally around. So I’m proud of them.”
Jackson County loses two senior starters but will have the majority of this team back next year.
“We’re going to work hard and try to make next year even better,” Ridgway said.
Of course, this year will be remembered pretty fondly, too, by the Lady Panthers.
“We’ve exceeded expectations,” Ridgway said. “So I was so proud of them.”
