The plan is simple. The execution isn't.
The Jefferson City Lady Jays entered Friday night's soccer contest against high powered Lee's Summit North with a plan. Play defense, play a lot of defense, and maybe get a good chance or two offensively and see what happens.
What happened was it worked as McKenzie Gourley scored two goals for the Lady Jays as they blanked the state-ranked Broncos 2-0 in the Capital City Shootout at the 179 Soccer Park.
"A team sets in defensively, stays extremely organized, counters a couple of times and wins a game," Lady Jays coach Eddie Horn said. "That's exactly what happened."
Lee's Summit North entered the game ranked No. 6 in Class 4 and was coming off a 7-0 win against Helias in its first game in the Shootout. Meanwhile, Jefferson City finished in a scoreless tie in its opener against Lee's Summit West.
"We survived, but we had to use a lot of energy to keep it at 0-0," Horn said. "They took it to us, especially in the first half, we were struggling to do much of anything."
Then after a break of a little more than an hour, it was time to take on the Broncos.
"Our players deserve a lot of credit," Horn said. "To play two quality teams like that and to come through like we did, it was a very good night for us."
The Lady Jays used an energetic effort to defeat the Broncos.
"It was probably the hardest I've seen us play in the past two seasons, we were fighting," Horn said. "We came out with a bit of an attitude."
Jefferson City got on the board with about 14 minutes to go in the first half. Sarah Luebbert hit a shot that dribbled toward the Lee's Summit North net before Gourley pounced on the loose ball and knocked it home to give the Lady Jays a 1-0 lead at the break.
"You get into halftime and think, "Man, what just happened?'" Horn said.
Horn tried to brace his team for what he expected to be an early rush by the Broncos in the ensuing 40 minutes.
"You know they are going to be all kinds of fired-up in the second half," he said. "We had to be ready for their best shot, especially in the first 10 minutes."
Instead, it was the Lady Jays who quickly got on the board. Gourley ran after a long ball in the Broncos' end of the field and when the Lee's Summit North keeper came too far out of the net in an attempt to get to it, she angled a shot into the opposite corner of the net.
"There was nobody there, but that doesn't mean it is an easy shot," Horn said. "It's like a golfer hitting over water, all you think about is not hitting it into the water and then you hit it into the water. The goal is wide open and you don't want to miss, so you get a little quick and you miss.
"But McKenzie didn't panic. She finished it just the way she should have."
Horn estimated Gourley has played forward in less than five games this season.
"She's fast and extremely athletic," Horn said. "When she takes off, she can go get it."
It is just the latest in a series of lineup moves for the Lady Jays this season.
"The kids really have done a great job of hanging with me this season because I don't know that we've used the same lineup twice," Horn said. "It's been tinkering with this and that, trying things, but the players have hung with it and I like the direction we're headed."
Up by two, the Lady Jays spent the remainder of the contest attempting to run out the clock.
"We wanted to see if they could break us down and just kick it out when we needed to do that," Horn said. "It was not a great soccer game, but our kids competed extremely hard."
Becca Sturgess got the shutout in goal for Jefferson City, making seven saves.
Megan Foster was in goal in the shutout against Lee's Summit West, totaling five saves.
Jefferson City, which improved to 7-3-3, is 6-0-1 in its last seven games. The Lady Jays are back in action Tuesday at Sedalia Smith-Cotton.