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North edges past Prosper into playoff berth
By Andrew Snyder, asnyder@acnpapers.com
McKinney North didn’t need to win its Friday night game against Prosper, but it couldn’t lose. Victory or a tie would send the Bulldogs to the playoffs, and a season that has seen bad luck for North in lost players and close losses finally showed the team some love with a 3-2 win.
“About the last seven or eight games, we lost a lot of games by one goal and we tied three games,” said Tommy Sills, North head coach. “So I knew we were bound to start scoring some goals, and the kids did a great job. I’m really proud of what they did.”
And while Prosper scored enough goals in the second half to overcome what had been a 2-1 deficit at halftime, the first of those was on its own keeper.
“You don’t get those very often,” Sills said. “But I’ll take them.”
When Prosper scored on a penalty kick in the 70th minute, which saw North keeper Angel Umanzor block the shot with his body only to see it bounce over and in, the Eagles would have had a tie game if not for that earlier mistake. As it was, the Bulldogs only had to hold on for 10 minutes more and after taking back to the offensive, they limited Prosper’s chances to tie the game.
With the win North secured the fourth playoff spot in District 9-4A.
Even though the Eagles gave them a push toward the win, the Bulldogs did their part to earn it by jumping to an early lead, via a 4th minute goal from Miguel Rodriguez.
North stayed a step ahead the rest of the way.
The first 20 minutes of the game saw the Bulldogs dominate possession time and scoring attempts, and when the first half hit its center, North lined up its second goal of the night to make it a 2-0 game.
Coming into the game North looked aware of what was on the line, and the only point in the game the team looked slack was the latter half of the first. That’s when Prosper notched its opening goal on a free kick that sailed to the corner of the goal, where an Eagles player was waiting to seamlessly boot it in.
Despite that lapse, Sills said his team showed a lot of heart.
“We played [Prosper] before,” he said. “We tied them last time and I knew that these guys would come out swinging at us. And they did a good job, but my kids they never give up. That’s what they’ve done the whole year long. They’re hard workers.”
Sills said his team got a taste of winning, and he hopes it carries over to the opening round of postseason play.
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