The 3rd Annual I-10 Shootout got underway Thursday as 32 teams formed four brackets known as North, South, East, and West.

The South bracket’s third game of the night was between Katy Taylor and St. Agnes at Rhodes Stadium. Taylor defeated St. Agnes, 4-3, in a shootout.

As regulation ended with a tie score, 1-1, a shootout took place between five girls from each team.

St. Agnes’ Elizabeth DeLozier was the first to score, giving the Tigers a 2-1 lead. Taylor’s Katie Wesneski missed the Mustangs’ first shot.

The Tigers scored on their next shot as Sarah Hanel put it past Taylor’s keeper for a 3-1 lead. Juliana Bortka scored for Taylor to make it 3-2. 

“Juliana Bortka is one of our other captains,” Taylor coach Mark Kluppel said. “She is a leader and does a good job at keeping pressure and distributing the ball.”

St. Agnes missed its last three shots and Taylor’s Tori Grimes and Betsy Fowler made both of theirs for the 4-3 win.

“I think Natalie Strabala (Keeper) did a really good job putting pressure on their kids and making them shoot wide and cutting out the angles,” Kluppel said. “She’s done these (shootouts) before.”

The Mustangs will play Georgetown or Clear Lake at 6 p.m. Friday at Taylor.

In the first 20 minutes of play, Taylor had two goal attempts that were so close to going in but didn’t. The first was a corner kick that flirted on the goal line but was picked up by St. Agnes’ goalkeeper. The second was a hard kick that just hit the top of the goal post to bounce off and into the hands of the keeper.

“I thought we were a little unlucky in the first half,” Kluppel said. “I have to look at the tape, but I’m pretty sure that corner kick went in. Then we had a few more shots, and they only took two, and scored.”

St. Agnes started the scoring at 26:53 when DeLozier kicked the ball into the corner of the net passed Taylor’s keeper.

But Taylor did get on the board at 17:45 when three of the Mustangs put pressure on the keeper, allowing Merruth Barriault to kick it straight into the net for the tie.

And so it stood until the shootout. 

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