Carroll girls soccer clinches tie for district title
3/10/2016by Kevin Lonnquist

Carroll winning district championships never gets old. In fact, each of them has its own story.

So when the Lady Dragons soccer team (20-1, 10-0) claimed at least a share of the District 7-6A championship last Friday with a 5-0 victory over Colleyville Heritage, it represented a team that just never gave the opposition any look at any game. In head coach Matt Colvin’s 15 seasons, this program has won or shared seven district championships.

“Our culture at Carroll is different,” Colvin said. “With district championships and our football team paving the way in the early 2000s, sometimes those get overlooked. They don’t get a lot of attention. But one of the things we talk to our team about every season is that there are about 230 teams playing [Class] 6A soccer in Texas and 32 districts. We have a chance to be one of those 32 teams.”

Carroll has never trailed at any point of its first 10 district games and allowed only five goals. More than likely, that opposition total was going to stay that way because Carroll played two teams it dominated in the first round. The Lady Dragons met Haltom on Tuesday and should have wrapped up the outright district championship. They conclude the regular season on Friday against Hurst L.D. Bell. Spring break is the week of March 14.

With everything in the regular season finalized, don’t look for this program to dial things back with starters’ playing time. Colvin said he will keep everything the same.

Not as prolific? That’s debatable

Carroll began the final week of the regular season with 109 goals. Last week, we told you that the Lady Dragons were projected to finish with 113. However, they’re now poised to perhaps finish somewhere in the 120s.

Given what happened in the first meetings against Haltom and L.D. Bell – Carroll won those games by 12-0 and 7-0 scores respectively – the Lady Dragons should climb somewhere into the 120s before they begin the postseason.

The single-season school record for goals in a season is 140 set by the 2002 team. This team could match it if it catches the right breaks. But that’s not the goal. Playing for a state championship in Georgetown next month is. Carroll is looking to return to the state tournament for the first time since 2013, when it lost to Plano West.

There are two different dynamics in play for this team. Move-in Ally Griffin already has the single-season record for goals in a season with 40. That surpassed Sophie Groff’s record of 35 in 2012. Senior Allie Luna should set the single-season school record for assists this week. She had 24 going into this week. That was tied for the mark set by Kelsey Allison in 2005 and equaled by Julia Dyche in 2012.

“Allie is extremely competitive, not just in a game but also in her training,” Colvin said. “She has that special quality that when she has the ball, she’s going to score. Allie has fit well into our system.

“With Allie Luna, her unselfishness is really important to note,” he added. “She was the offensive player in the district last year. Now, she’s leading us in assists. That’s a big role. It’s an obvious change that really helped us.”


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