Injuries, sickness coming at bad time for Seahawks

Published 6:25 pm Sunday, April 20, 2025

By Jason O. Boyd

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CHOCOWINITY, N.C. — Injuries and sickness couldn’t come at a worse time for the Southside High School girls’ soccer team.

The Seahawks dropped a 4-0 decision at home to Perquimans on Wednesday, then lost 4-0 to Camden County on Thursday. The setbacks put the team at 9-6-1 overall, 1-2 going into a game at Coastal Plains Conference foe Lejeune on April 28.

Head coach Jay Petty hopes his team will be feeling and doing better by then. Injuries and sickness have hit the team and forced players into positions they haven’t played and shortened the bench for substitutes to help contribute to the grind of going up and down the field during an 80-minute match.

“And sometimes you just kind of hit those slumps in the season and unfortunately, I think we’re in ours right now,” Petty said. “We’re missing bodies, that’s what’s killing us right now. I’ve got the sickness going through the team, between injuries.

“We’re missing seven players (Wednesday), so a couple of them, really key players that normally start for us. So, you know, it did kind of throw us off on our rhythm a little bit. Felt like the girls gave it their best.

“We just didn’t have the pieces we needed to be as successful as we normally have been. That’s really kind of where we are. Because I told them at the end of the game, I said, yeah, your effort was there.”

Southside had a few chances in the first half but spent a lot of that time on their heels, quickly returning to the defensive side. The Pirates had several corner kicks that the Seahawks booted out of the box to prevent a goal from being scored in the first 30 minutes.

However, in the 32nd minute, Perquimans’ Rylin Atchison found the back of the net on a free kick after a penalty to give her team a 1-0 lead at the half.

The Pirates pushed the lead to 2-0 early in the second half on a goal by Tiffany McNeil. Perquimans got two more goals in a scramble over the last few minutes as the Seahawks were gassed and struggling to keep up with the rested and fresher opposition players who were cycled in and out of the game.

“Yeah, and that’s where the girls were near the end of the game,” Petty said. “They’re just frustrated, and I don’t blame them. Because again, we’re playing without some key pieces, and it really, I had to put players in positions tonight that they might have played once or twice this year, but now they had to play the whole game there tonight, which is not normal.

“And so, they’re having to really adjust to it, and like I said, overall, I felt like they did decent on the adjustments. It’s just missing the key pieces, I think, made the difference tonight.”

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