Yoe soccer looks to close out season on high note

Just two weeks of play remain in 2017 for the Yoe soccer programs. There have been high’s and low’s over the past two months, but both teams look to close out the season on a positive trend.

On Friday, Cameron hosted Smithville in 26-4A action from Yoe Field. In the first match, the Yoemen fell behind early, 4-0, and after the break gave up 4 more goals in an 8-0 loss.

“We’ve got some injuries and it’s late in the year and that is hurting us,” said head coach Kevin Webb. “It seems like the people that are going through those injury problems are some of our most valuable people. We at least are getting some experience with our younger guys. They are getting in there and are playing hard like Yoemen and I could not be more proud of them.”

Cameron has yet to win a 26-4A district match at 0-7, but the experienced gained throughout the final four matches of the season should prove to be beneficial.

“We’re going to play the top four teams the last four games,” said Webb. “That’s really painful for a young team sometimes, but these last couple weeks of the season are going to pay off in the future. Maybe not this year, maybe not next year, but two to three years down the line it’s going to pay off.”

Following the boys, the Lady Yoe team fell in a heartbreaker, 1-0. The match had many momentum swings as each squad saw multiple shots on goal, but it was the Lady Tigers that cashed in with 15 minutes remaining.

“I thought we played really hard,” said head coach Laura Dickson. “It was definitely an improvement from the last time we played them. We did a lot better moving to the ball and we had a lot more opportunities to score than last time.”
Cameron (1-6) fell to this same Smithville team 3-0 the first go-around of district play. The ladies will look for more positives down the stretch of the season.

“We want to keep improving,” said Dickson. “We’ve talked about improving on the little things that we can do right to help us be better as a whole team. We need to get confidence that we can win these games. We are so close and they keep fighting no matter what. They did that tonight and I was really proud at how they played.”

Cameron will be on the road at Eastside Memorial on Friday and will host La Grange on Tuesday. The boys will begin at 5:15 p.m. with the girls to follow at 7:15 p.m.