Plano East’s Brendan Gillum jumps in the air as he gets to the ball first during Tuesday’s home game against Prosper Rock Hill. Photo by Andy Redmond / C&S Media
By David Wolman
Tuesday marked another big step in the journey for the Plano East boys and girls soccer teams, one in which the Panthers will hope will catapult them to the playoffs.
The Plano East boys cruised to a 4-1 win over Prosper Rock Hill as the Panthers earned their first regulation win since a 2-1 triumph over Plano West on Feb. 17.
Joshua Fonseca, Aiden Carrillo, Brandon Cazeault and Erik Ledezma each scored one goal in the win.
The win gives the Panthers 27 points in the District 6-6A standings, good for third place — one behind second-place Allen (28) and three ahead of Prosper (24) and Plano (24), who are tied for fourth place. Plano East will host Plano on Friday in what will be a crucial outing. Plano East faces Allen on March 13 in the regular-season finale for both teams. Between those two matches is a March 10 game with McKinney.
On the girls side, Plano East remains in second place, with its latest result being a 3-2 nail-biter over Rock Hill on Tuesday.
Plano East took a 2-0 lead 25 minutes into the match on goals by Sydney Reichert and Aliya Jacob. Rock Hill answered with two goals to tie the score. The Lady Panthers retook the lead with five minutes remaining in the match on a goal by Lauren Delapaz.
Plano East got a defensive spark from Simone Heard. Heard, who hasn’t played goalkeeper since she was 12 years old, came in and made a few key plays to her team afloat.
With inclement weather in the forecast for Friday night, Friday’s girls soccer game between Plano East and Plano has been moved up to 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Tom Kimbrough Stadium. The boys game between the two schools will kickoff at 6:30 p.m. Friday at John Clark Stadium.
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