E.D. White girls 1 of 5 local teams moving on in playoffs

E.D. White girl’s soccer coach Donald Grabert knows how good his team can be.

That’s why at halftime of his team’s first round playoff game on Friday against St. Frederick’s, he gave the Lady Cardinals a spirited speech, despite having a 3-1 lead.

“I just didn’t think we were aggressive enough in the first half,” Grabert said. “I let them know I wasn’t happy, because we’re better than the way that we played.”

The Lady Cardinals listened to their coach’s pep talk and dominated the second half, adding three more goals and controlling possession, en route to an easy 6-1 win.

“We were more aggressive and we had more confidence,” Grabert said. “We played. We didn’t sit back and watch. We played. When we do that, we’re pretty good.”

The win moves the No. 11-seed Lady Cardinals to the second round of the state Division III playoffs, where they will next meet the No. 6-seed, Runnels, who beat North DeSoto 10-0 in the opening round.

“Runnels is very good,” Grabert said. “That will be a big challenge for us.”

The cause of Grabert’s ire was the way his team started the game defensively.

E.D. White fell into an early 1-0 hole in the opening minutes of the game and a few missed defensive assignments allowed a Lady Warrior to breakfree for a goal.

But the Lady Cardinals offense came to life led by a pair of first half goals from senior Lindsay Constant and a pair of second half goals by senior Abby Tregre.

“It’s funny, because Abby is a left-footed player, but she knocked those in with her right foot,” Grabert said. “She’s had some chances, but she was able to put them in tonight. I’m very happy with how she played.”

The Lady Cardinals were one of the only Tri-parish teams to survive the opening round of the playoffs on the girl’s side.

In Division I, Central Lafourche, H.L. Bourgeois and Terrebonne were all knocked off in shutouts.

The Lady Trojans lost 4-0 to Byrd. The Lady Braves dropped a 9-0 match to St. Thomas More and the Lady Tigers were defeated 2-0 by Chapelle.

In the girl’s Division II playoffs, a pair of Tri-parish teams are still alive as Morgan City throttled Minden 7-0 in the opening round.

They are joined in the second round by the No. 2-seed Vandebilt who had a first-round bye.

On the boy’s side, E.D. White was the only team in the Tri-parish area to win a match in the opening round of the playoffs as the Cardinals won a 2-0 match against Ouachita Christian.

The Cardinals had better luck in the opening round than Terrebonne, Central Lafourche, South Lafourche, Thibodaux and Morgan City, who were all beaten in their first-round matches.

Vandebilt is also still alive on the boy’s side. The Terriers had a first-round bye and will take on Bossier in the second round.