The Fort Gibson 2023 soccer season from the outset looked like it would be a huge success. Coach Billy Whitehead had 10 returning seniors, seven of whom were starters from a team that went to the state quarterfinals last year. But there was an element missing from the Lady Tigers’ arsenal.
“This season we were really lacking a proven goalscorer like we’ve had in the past with Albany Adair and Sydney Taylor, and we struggled with that all season long,” said Whitehead. “After an early season loss to Oologah as we were getting our basketball players back in the groove, we went 7-0 in district play.
“We still struggled to score even after moving some folks around at mid-season, but our defense carried us along. On the plus side this team was probably the best team I’ve had chemistry-wise in my five years of coaching the girls with the best overall leadership on and off the field.
“We had so many great seniors like Grace Parker who is going on to play at OBU next year, Kenzie Snell, Sophie Ellis, Ryan Contreras and our goalkeeper Kameryn Walker. This group also helped us win our third straight state academic championship with an average grade point of 3.96.”
After losing their freshman season to Covid, this group of seniors found their ups and downs connected by one common opponent over the years: Metro Christian.
“Metro was in our district two years ago when we lost to them in district play and then came back to beat them in the state championship game,” recalled Whitehead. “Districts were realigned last year so we didn’t see them until the playoffs when they beat us in a shootout in the quarterfinals and we faced them again in the quarterfinals this season. We were a little sloppy in the first half and they got an early goal. We traded goals in the second half and even though we spent the last 10 minutes of the match on their end of the field we couldn’t punch in the tying goal, and they beat us 2-1. It was disappointing to end that early because we always have the expectation of ending the season in the finals. We’ll have a lot of seniors to replace but we replaced nine this year and did all right, so we’ll reload and be ready to go after it again next spring.”
