Southside’s girls knew Monday’s regular-season finale wasn’t for seeding purposes.

While the Mavericks approached the match with North Little Rock as essentially a tune-up for Thursday’s 7A State Tournament opener, there was still incentive to get a win.


Southside did take care of business with a 4-0 win in 7A-Central action at Jim Rowland Stadium, which allowed the Mavs (15-7, 9-5) to finish in a three-way tie for second place in the conference along with Little Rock Central and Mount St. Mary.

But due to tiebreaker procedures, Southside was already locked into the No. 4 playoff seed from the conference.

“It was good; we came out and we just really wanted to work on some things,” Southside coach Jeremy Davis said. “We obviously wanted to get the win, but we wanted to try to work on some things going into the playoffs and I thought we did well keeping possession; if we can do that throughout the state tournament, I like our chances.”

Kelly Carson helped put the Mavs in front to stay with a pair of goals nearly two minutes apart.

Her first goal came off a feed from Mercedez Ramsey 15 minutes into the match. Carson then found the net again moments later on a solo attempt.

Southside made it 3-0 with 13 minutes left until halftime on Maddison Hagen’s goal, which came off a direct kick from senior Nancy Mendoza.

“All we did was take it as a practice because we know that North Little Rock did not make the playoffs and that’s kind of hard, but we took it as a practice as an advantage to learn more things out of it. ... You take it as a practice and you go from the basics; you start from the back and then you go forward,” Mendoza said.

The Mavs’ final goal took place with 31:45 left on Mendoza’s second assist, a cross over to Lydia Hagen for the finish.

Now, Southside prepares for the 7A State Tournament, which will be on its home field.

The Mavs play an opening-round match at 2 p.m. Thursday against Rogers Heritage, the No. 5 seed from the 7A-West. Southside enters state having won two straight and four of its past five matches.

“I think just keeping the ball and then continuing on our winning streak, I think that’s important heading into the playoffs going in on some wins,” Davis said.

Southside 6, NLR 2

BOYS — The Mavs wrapped up the No. 5 seed from the 7A-Central with the win in their home finale Monday.

Southside (11-12, 6-8) will play the first match of the 7A State Tournament at 10 a.m. Thursday at Northside’s Mayo-Thompson Stadium against Rogers Heritage, the No. 4 seed from the 7A-West. The winner advances to Friday’s quarterfinals against 7A-Central champion Northside.


Derek Gutierrez put Southside in command just 30 seconds into the match with a successful shot. After a goal from Chris Orellana made it 2-0 15 minutes in, Gutierrez scored again minutes later on a breakaway, extending the lead to 3-0.

Jesse Garcia then scored twice inside the final four minutes of the opening half, as Southside built a 5-1 advantage.

The Mavs made it 6-1 near the midway point of the second half as Dustin Lopez connected inside the left corner on a breakaway attempt.
