No. 3 Holmes heads into Region/Gulf South District Tournament as No. 1 seed
RIDGELAND --- The No. 3 ranked and MACCC champion Holmes Community College Lady Bulldogs go into the Region XXIII Tournament at Jones College as the No. 1 seed and will open region play on Friday at 11 a.m. vs. the No. 4 seeded Pearl River Community College Lady Wildcats, who were ranked No. 9 in the final NJCAA poll.
One major change this season saw the Mississippi Association of Community Colleges Conference moving away from North and South Divisions and created schedules where all of the colleges with soccer programs played each other at least once in a conference contest.
The Lady Bulldogs, who finished the regular season 15-1-1 and MACCC play with a record of 8-1-1, played 17 overall contests and had 13 shutouts including eight in MACCC play. Holmes tied Northwest, 1-1, and fell to Pearl River in the final regular season game, 3-2, in overtime. Pearl River is 14-1-2 on the season.
The Lady Bulldogs finished the regular season with 76 goals averaging four goals per contest and had 244 shots on goal and 424 shots. Brianna Lopez leads the Lady Bulldogs in goals scored with 14. Jaycelyn Russ finished with 11, Callie McKinney had 10 while Darian Blackburn and Tailynn Remmel each had seven goals. Lopez led the Lady Bulldogs in assists with 14 while Remmel, had six and McKinney, Russ, Kaci Craft, Olivia Deslatte and Jaelyn Hanson each had four. Lopez had 42 points, Russ had 26, McKinney had 24 and Remmel had 20.
Jordan Bertschler and Karly Murphy split time in goal for the Lady Bulldogs. Bertschler played 745 minutes and had 31 saves while Murphy had 27 saves in 710 minutes. They each played a part in the 13 shutouts on the season. The two only gave up six goals the entire season.
"It's a great accomplishment for the team to be Conference Champs," Head Coach Wesley Noble said. "Our league is tough. Having four top 10 teams in the country makes a very tough road to be champions. It's the toughest conference in the country."
Noble said he and his team hoped to finish the regular season unscathed but didn't play well enough to defeat Pearl River in Poplarville last week.
"Going undefeated would be a great accomplishment, especially in this league," Noble said. "We didn't play well enough to win our last game against PRCC, and they deserved that result. Pearl River is a good team, and they battled us for entirety of the game.
"They are organized year in and year out," he said. "We will need to be sharper in all aspects this time around and be more composed in what we want to do. We should be ready. It will be a fun one. We are excited to get to compete this weekend for a Region and District title. This is what you work for all year."
The Lady Bulldogs have been recognized as one of the top teams in the NJCAA's Division II for the last few years, and Noble said this year's team recognized the success and wanted to keep that going.
"Consistency is important," Noble said. "We have a great group of players that are also very good people who came in and wanted to keep the standard. This is our third (MACCC) conference title in the last four years. We entered the season 5th I believe and were able to stay there or move up each week. That's a testament to the work the players have put in."
The 2022 Lady Bulldogs have battled through some injuries during the season, and Noble said each player on the team stepped up to fill in for those who were unable to play during those times.
"That's been a major key to our success this year," he said. "We lost several players for lengthy amounts of time through the season but had players step up in very big roles. Being able to jump into intense games and contribute in the highest ways isn't an easy thing to do, and we have a list of players who did so."
"Each team is always a bit different," he said. "I've been really impressed with this group's willingness to learn and the way they treat each other. It's one of the tightest knit groups we have had and they come each day with a good mentality to training. Our captains and sophomores have done a good job leading the group from day one."