ACE soccer teams clinch region championships with wins over East Laurens

Hat tricks are hard enough to come by when you’re a striker. For a center back — the player who anchors a team’s defensive efforts — the opportunity to score three goals in a game is even less common.

In a critical region game at ACE on Thursday, center back Scout Jones did it anyway.

Jones — the daughter of head coach Robby Jones — was just one piece of a dominant offensive performance for the ACE Gryphons, as she netted all three of her goals in the second half as ACE (13-1 overall, 6-0 in region) romped to a 9-0 win over East Laurens (8-8, 5-3) at home to win its sixth consecutive region championship.

“Super exciting as a coach and (I was) ecstatic as her dad. She’s normally on the back line but she climbed up into the attack and got a goal. I was surprised, and then she got another one and another one, all in the second half,” Robby Jones said. “Really the best thing to see as a dad was just her teammates so excited for her.”

Bailey Loosier, one of ACE’s most frequent offensive standouts, scored four goals, including two in each half as she and Scout Jones combined for seven of the team’s nine scores. Edy Powell and Kate Thomason scored the other two goals for the Gryphons, both in the first half. 

It was a steady and suffocating performance by a team that, while outclassing opponents all year, has quickly become a state championship contender. ACE has outscored its opponents 80-12 this year and will be looking to avenge last season’s Final Four loss when the playoffs roll around.

“We’ve scheduled our non-region as hard as we can. We’ve scheduled (schools at classifications 6A-1A), and we’ve beat a team at each of those levels. That’s fun to do. Everybody’s kind of settling into their spot and focusing on the particular skills they need at their specific spot,” Jones said. “You can see the trajectory of growth. The culture’s strong, these girls have played together for a long time and it’s peaking at the right moment.”

The ACE boys played a tighter match but did more than enough to make it a successful night for the school, defeating East Laurens 5-1 to win their region championship as well. Sohan Patel scored two goals early before he finished his hat trick in the second half to give the Gryphons an edge they would not relinquish.

“Last year it was a 1-0 game. This year we were able to attack them early, Sohan got in early,” Jones said of the boys game. “That put us in a good spot. We communicated really well. Our back line’s real organized and real strong. It’s really settled into our scheme and strategy.”

The boys improved to 8-4 overall and 6-0 in Region 2-A Division I, clinching the championship thanks to having a 1-game lead and holding the tiebreaker over Dodge County, which ACE defeated 2-0 earlier this season.

Girls game: A scoring frenzy

Much of the girls team’s success stems from their embarrassment of offensive riches. The Gryphons can get scoring from a variety of sources, and the defense clamps things down with ease to give them regular opportunities. That was certainly on display Thursday night.

“There’s a lot of girls on the team that are ball strikers. They can really get their laces through it. People have to pay attention to that,” Jones said. “We have some that can score from distance, we have some that are quick and can bury it side net, we have girls that’ll head it in. … You need that.”

East Laurens did a solid job on defense early in the first half as well, but the ACE offense found its footing and punched in a goal about 10 minutes into the half when Lily Bivins found Loosier on a nice assist. Bivins, incredibly, assisted on all four of Loosier’s scores.

The Falcons held out for a bit longer to keep it a 1-0 game, largely thanks to goalkeeper Deanna Lowther making some nice stops. The true onslaught began with about 12 minutes left in the half, as the Gryphons peppered East Laurens with shot after shot without letting the ball escape the final third.

Powell scored first at the 27:46 mark, lasering a shot into the net from the left side. Kate Thomason scored about two minutes later, and Bivins assisted Loosier once more with about 8:30 left in the opening half.

ACE got a few more good scoring chances, but the 4-0 lead held into halftime.

The defensive effort early by the Falcons came at the expense of any sliver of offensive opportunity — not a single East Laurens kick managed to cross midfield, it seemed, and the Gryphons’ goalkeeper only touched the ball on the rare occasions her teammates passed it her way.

ACE kept the pressure on in the second half to produce a similar result, as five more goals led to the 9-0 final.

Boys game: A hat trick leads the way

The boys game offered a bit of a twist from the girls game, as ACE scored two quick goals before going quiet for a bit longer.

Patel scored one goal just about 7 minutes into the game on a great run upfield, then put the Gryphons up 2-0 with a penalty kick about three minutes later. From there, ACE leaned on its defense until halftime, though the East Laurens boys fared a bit better and got the ball into the final third a handful of times with shifty dribbling from its front line.

The Gryphons got back to business in the second half. Patel scored a third time to complete the hat trick early before Harrington scored to make it 4-0 about 60 minutes into the match. While East Laurens spoiled the shutout with a goal from John Thang, ACE tacked on one more goal from Jackson Hanke with only a few minutes left to get the 5-1 win.

Despite some other nice shots on goal, that was where the score stayed as the boys team pulled out the win and the region title.

“It’s a big deal because we have a large region and there’s a lot of teams that love soccer. We don’t really get a ton of region championships at the school, especially on the boys side,” Jones said. “So when we get it, we celebrate it. It’s worth celebrating.”