FROSTBURG — For the third time in five years, Mountain Ridge will play in the semifinals, defeating Perryville 5-1 in Saturday’s quarterfinal at Miners Stadium.
“We played a good second half, first half I thought we didn’t possess the ball well,” Mountain Ridge head coach Jon Miller said. “We controlled a lot of the game, just couldn’t finish. Second half, we stepped it up and finished it off.”
Just like in Tuesday’s region final win over Southern, the Miners (14-2-1) entered halftime with one goal, but scored four in the second half to pull away.
The Panthers (7-8) opened the scoring with 15:20 remaining in the first half.
Carsyn Hulbert took a free kick from about 25 yards out, and Ashlyn Anderson finished on a header.
“They’re a good team, we were holding our own for a while,” Perryville head coach Chris Tome said. “We ran out of gas a little bit in the second half. We had a couple girls who are sick, a couple who are injured. Sometimes that’s the way it goes.”
With just under three minutes before halftime, Ava Armstrong was open inside the net for a tap-in goal to even the score at the break.
“Perryville were stepping to the ball, they were playing good defense,” Miller said. “Weren’t allowing us to get turned. They were playing flat, we weren’t working the ball to the outsides, we were trying to force it down the middle.”
Mountain Ridge took the lead for good exactly 10 minutes into the second half.
Ava Bernard fired a shot off the top of the crossbar that bounced back into the net to put the Miners in front 2-1.
Mountain Ridge added three more scores in the final 15 minutes of play.
Armstrong took a through ball from Bernard for a goal down the middle.
“They’re really good at controlling the ball,” Tome said. “They’re possessing the ball pretty well, and when you’re chasing more than you’re possessing the ball yourselves, it tends to get you gassed.”
Fiona Ruddell scored off an assist by Myla Bernard about seven minutes later.
Bernard later concluded the scoring on a shot in the bottom right corner with just over three minutes left.
“We talked like we did against Southern, we wanted to work it outside and then back in to get the ball out and spread the defense out,” Miller said of what changed in the second half.
The Miners led 12-5 in shots on goal and 2-1 in corner kicks.
Alana Warner finished with seven saves for Perryville, while Mountain Ridge’s Taylor Lamberson recorded four saves.
“We were holding our own in the central midfield for most of the first half,” Tome said. “When we control the midfield, we tend to keep the ball out of our defensive third. I think in the second half, with the limited personnel to step in and help Sadie (Tome) in the midfield, we kind of lost control of the midfield a little bit.”
The Miners advance to their sixth trip to the semifinals in program history and third since 2021.
Mountain Ridge will face Harford Tech on either Friday or Saturday at a neutral site to be announced.
“They are a good group, very talented, very skilled, hard-working young ladies,” Miller said. “They adapted well to our changes. We’re still trying to work them into a more technical possession game of soccer, so we’re getting there.”
The Cobras (13-2-1) defeated Carver A&T 8-0 in Friday’s quarterfinal and will play in its first semifinal since playing for the 2009 state title.
Top-seeded South Carroll faces Liberty in the other semifinal.
“I know they’re technical and possess the ball well,” Miller said. “I haven’t got a lot of game film on them yet, but they’re a good team.”