The Daily Times

The plan came together Thursday night for Bill Kee and his Heritage soccer team — and the timing couldn’t have been any better.

The Lady Mountaineers got a hat trick from Casi Cline, and a goal each from Siarra Whaley and Anna Sinders as Heritage came from behind to beat Greenback 5-4 Thursday on Senior Night.

“We talked about strategy earlier in the week — how they needed to do stuff, where they needed to be, how they needed to play — and they executed just like how we had talked about,” Kee told The Daily Times after the win.

“This is one time I can say just about everything went as it was planned.”

Cline, one of six seniors honored by Heritage Thursday, scored all three of her goals in the first half to knot the score at 3-3 at intermission after Greenback had taken leads at 1-0 and 2-1 in the first 40 minutes.

“It’s emotional,” Cline said of the Senior Night win. “It’s hard because I don’t want to stop playing.

“It feels great because we’ve only won a few games this season. It feels good to win our last one. Especially the seniors’ last one.”

Cline tied the game at 1-all in the 15th minute, tied it at 2-2 in the 24th minute and gave Heritage its first lead at 3-2 in the 25th mintue.

Whaley scored the go-ahead goal in the 66th minute and Sniders scored just over a minute later to build the advantage to two goals at 5-3.

“It’s a pretty good way to end the regular season,” Kee said. “It was a very physical second half. We had some girls with some minor injuries and they played right through them. They worked really hard.

“They executed on everything they needed to do.”

Masey Fox, who serves as Greenback’s place kicker on the football field on Friday nights, scored all four goals for the Lady ‘Kees Thursday.

It was just another busy night during a busy week in the fall for the two-sport athlete.

“I haven’t had a lot of free time,” Fox said with a laugh. “We usually play two to three games a week and then we have the football game.”

Fox said the Greenback football coaches haven’t minded her busy schedule.

“I usually practice kicking on Thursdays, but if I have a (soccer) game then I practice on Wednesday,” Fox said. “As long as I show up on Friday night.”

Fox scored first eight minutes in Thursday night for a 1-0 lead, again at the 20 minute mark for a 2-1 Greenback lead and tied the game at 3-3 just before the half. She scored with just over 13 minutes left in regulation to cut the Heritage lead down to 5-4.

Fox said after Thursday’s regular season finale that her team had come along way over the course of the schedule.

“It’s been encouraging,” Fox said. “We’ve had a lot of team bonding this year and understood more of the game.

“We’re getting better at knowing how to win.”

senior honors: Heritage honored its six departing seniors at half time Thursday night, including Cline, Whaley, Leah Bowman, Loren Myers, Hope Tipton and Kayla Weimer.

“They’ve been leaders,” Kee said. “They’ve worked hard, they’ve busted their tails to do what needed to be done, some not so glamorous stuff that needed to happen. They did what they needed to do.

“I’m kind of sad to see them go because this is the first group of seniors that I’ve had as head coach for all four years.

“That’s kind of rough.”