SPORTS

‘They’re going to be hungry’: Panthers drop state semifinal to Fallston, look ahead to promising 2023

By Victor Hensley

LINGANORE, MD -

For a fleeting moment, it appeared Perryville was going to escape with a victory, punching its ticket to the state championship game as its perfect season raged on.

But, Fallston — the state’s reigning 1A champion — had other plans.

The No. 4 Fallston Cougars (15-3) proceeded to score two unanswered goals in the game’s final 16 minutes to shock the previously unbeaten Perryville Panthers (14-1), 2-1, in the semifinal of the MPSSAA 1A women’s soccer playoffs, cutting short their historic chase of perfection.

“We watched a lot of film on them and we knew what they had, we knew they could control possession, they could control the game,” said John Myers, the Panthers’ head coach, after the loss. “We knew if we just dropped back a little bit, we knew we had the advantage with Sarah Murrell up top and, luckily, we got that first one that we thought we could hold on to and it just didn’t happen that way.”

Taking a glance at the post-game box score, you’d likely think the Cougars won handily.

In total, Fallston posted 17 shots-on-goal, including nine in the opening half, compared to Perryville’s two. All game long, the Cougars controlled possession, peppering the net with shots and playing keepaway from the Panthers, preventing them from getting more than a handful of legitimate scoring opportunities.

Yet, the Panthers held the lead for a little over 57 minutes before the Cougars finally got on the board. And that was thanks in part to Perryville junior Sarah Murrell, who took possession near midfield after a failed Cougars corner kick in the 8th minute, sped past Fallston’s backline and deposited a shot into the right corner of the net after a breakaway, one-on-one face-off between her and Fallston goalkeeper Leah Rhinehart.

“We knew they were keeping girls back, and we knew Sarah was faster than continued on B-2