The Episcopal School of Dallas came into the SPC tournament ranked #1 in the Division-II bracket. This gave them a fortunate first round bye to automatically advance to the winners bracket.

The second round brought on the tough Oakridge Owls who came out fired up and ready to play. The Owls took a 3-0 lead at halftime and looked as if they would dominate the rest of the game.

Nancy Franklin, coach of ESD, told her girls at halftime to get back out on the field and have some fun and score some goals. Her team heard the message and scored two goals but gave up one cutting their deficit to two halfway through the second half.

Just as it appeared the Eagles would cut the deficit to one, a controversial call on their third goal would still leave the Eagles down two.

The call came when Eagle Kathryn Weinmann put a shot into the back of the goal and the ball went through the netting and came out the other side. The shot was originally counted as a goal, but when the referee saw it behind the goal, he then reversed the call and said it had missed.

The Eagles showed great poise and kept their heads up. With time winding down the Eagles scored again as Samantha Chavez made the assist to Taylor Keating who tapped the ball past the Owl goalie. The goal put the Eagles within one but time expired before they had a chance to tie it.

In the 4-3 loss, the controversial call proved to have an irreversible impact on the outcome of the game.

“It would have been o.k. if we would have lost fairly,” explained Franklin.

In spite of the controversy, much credit to the Owls who played a great game. They came out strong and dominated the first half on offense and defense. The Eagles made a valiant effort in the second half and had a tremendous comeback to make for an exciting game.

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