There will be a new Class 2A champion crowned as a first-time champion on Friday night when Pike County and Savannah Arts girls soccer teams face off at Mercer University in Macon.
The two programs are meeting in the playoffs for the first time since the 2019 season, when Pike County won 7-3.
Pike County enters as the higher seed, being the number one overall seed. The Pirates have proven that seeding correct, winning their first four playoff games 32-3. Pike County is having a magical season, winning 19 of the team’s 21 games. The team is led by a trio of 20-goal scorers. The team’s leading scorer is Anna Bottoms, who has scored 23 goals this season. The team’s second-leading scorer is freshman phenom Jacey Fillingham, who, in her first year of high school, has scored 22 goals. Last of the three is Sophie Moss, who has 20 goals on the year. The three combine for an impressive 65 goals. Possibly the team’s most important player is not one of its three elite scorers. The team’s assist leader, Olivia Park, is one of the top players in assists in the state with 31. Additionally, she isn’t too shabby in the goal department either, having scored 18. That means she has had a hand in 49 of the team’s goals. The only other player with nearly as many is Bottoms, with 47. After that, the next closest is 10 behind, with 39.
Across the pitch, Savannah Arts has also had a historic season. Going 19-2 and finally making it past the quarterfinals, a hurdle they had not cleared in the last two seasons, the team is led by two of the state’s top scorers in Jordan Gunn and Amelia Reci. Gunn is the team’s leading scorer and assist leader, with 39 goals and 23 assists, accounting for 62 goals this season and accumulating 101 points. Reci, on the other hand, is nearly a pure scorer, and a fine one at that, having scored 34 goals this season, a number that would lead most other teams by a wide margin.
The two teams will enter after very different playoff experiences. While Pike County has cruised through the last two rounds of the playoffs, Savannah Arts has battled in its last two games, winning by a combined total of just two goals. The question will be: what prevails, the dominance of the Pirates or the battle-hardened Panthers, who have not had the luxury of an easy road to the championship?
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