By Daniel Rigdon / Sports Writer
The Meridian Star
CLINTON — West Lauderdale held its own through the first 40 minutes of play Saturday only to have its title dream shot down by St. Stanislaus.
SSC exploded in the second half to capture its third title in eight years in the Class 4A State Soccer Championship, downing the Knights 5-0 on a bone-chilling, windy morning.
"We were just overmatched today," said West coach Bryan Miley. "I can't tell you how proud I am of my team."
West Lauderdale ends its season with a record of 14-3, while capturing a Division 5-4A title and a North State Championship.
However, the state championship slipped away when the Rock-a-Chaws broke things wide open early in the second half when Kollin Cannon fired a shot in from point-blank range off of a Matt Rentz assist to push their 1-0 halftime lead to two goals in the second minute.
Three minutes later, Cannon would again find the back of the net from the exact same spot, this time on an assist from Philip Prieur.
West then went on the offensive, creating shot-after-shot on the Stanislaus goal but would come up empty-handed each time. The Knights outshot the Rock-a-Chaws 11-6 in the second half.
West seemed to regain its composure as it kept possession on St. Stanislaus' end of the field for the next 12 minutes.
Once again Stanislaus had the answer, though, as Cole Phillips scored in the 17th minute to make the score 4-0.
From that point on the teams would battle back-and-forth up before Jacob Boone netted the final score of the contest with one minute left in the contest to make the final 5-0.
Before the second-half explosion by the Rock-a-Chaws, West looked to jump on the Rock-a-chaws early as the Knights had two shots on goal in the opening minutes of the first half. However, West could not convert either.
St. Stanislaus then took control and persistently attacked the West Lauderdale goal as it had the strong wind blowing in its favor.
Knights' keeper Scott Gray would put forth a tremendous effort as he recorded seven first-half saves to keep West in contention.
Unfortunately, Prieur would drill a shot into the upper-right 90 to break the stalemate and put the Rock-a-Chaws up 1-0 in the 30th minute of the first half.
West was not discouraged and used a great defensive effort to shut down the Stanislaus attack to enter halftime only trailing by one goal.
"I thought we came in and tried to play our game," said Miley. "We knew we had to come in and play well defensively. They wanted to get physical so we tried to get physical back.
"They had the wind with them in the first half and got one easy goal"
St. Stanislaus (14-5-1) had 13 shots-on-goal to West's five in the first half.
