Original Article on Longview News-Journal Website

SOCCER: Pirates fall to Dragons

SPECIAL TO THE LONGVIEW NEWS-JOURNAL

Sunday, March 13, 2005

It was an exciting, seesaw battle between the Pine Tree Pirates and the Nacogdoches Dragons on Friday night. Ultimately, the experience of the Dragons came through as they came from behind to defeat the Pirates 3-1 in a District 16-4A match at Pine Tree Stadium.

PT junior midfielder Tony Guillen drew first blood by scoring a header off a throw-in by sophomore Jonathan Zimicki eight minutes into the match.

Nacogdoches senior forward Taylor Pancratz scored in 12 minutes later to even the score. Five minutes later, Pine Tree was was called for a handball in the box, and the Dragon senior Brad Field converted the penalty kick to break the tie.

Pine Tree pressed hard in the second half and pushed players forward to look for the equalizing goal. But, with eight minutes left in the game, Nacogdoches senior Tyler McCrary raced down the sideline and scored after stealing the ball from a PT defender.

With the win, Nacogdoches wrapped up the district championship and improved to 12-0 in league play. Pine Tree drops to fourth place with a record of 7-1-4 in district and 13-9-1 overall.

Pine Tree travels to Marshall to face the Mavericks on Tuesday.

The Pine Tree junior varsity lost to Nacogdoches, 1-0.

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