Shimeall clutch in quarterfinals
The match results were unavailable by press time. But three days
before that, the Lady Admirals took down Maryville 1-0 in the region quarterfinals to reach this point in the 2026 campaign.
Sophomore Meghan Shimeall found the back of the net in the fourth minute of the contest, putting Farragut in a lead it would not relinquish in the next 76 minutes.
“Shim, she’s all heart and passion,” Farragut coach Jessica Burkhart said of Shimeall. “That kid is small but mighty. She works her butt off to create something and stay busy and cause chaos around the ball, and she continues to grow as a player and work as hard as she can work.”
“She pushes the ball, will try to run anything down. Defensively, she gets back. We ask her to play end line to end line, and that’s been her biggest attribute, that she can do that. She doesn’t ever stop and has an engine that keeps going.”
Farragut goalie Emery Wylie came through with a couple saves throughout the contest, but the Lady Admirals’ defense did plenty to keep the Lady Rebels at bay, too.
“I don’t think that’s how it played,” Burkhart said. “At one point, we had over 12 shots to their two. We maintained the majority of the possession and the tempo of the game. For soccer, that’s hard to maintain the whole game. They had moments that made us more scared than we wanted, but for the most part, we were pretty in control.”
While the Bearden results are unavailable for today’s paper, Burkhart outlined what she wanted from her team going into the match.
“We have to worry about us,” she said. “Bearden is what Bearden is. Everyone knows it, but we have to stay consistent and play better than we did last time.
“We were not happy with that performance and didn’t think we did well, so all focus for us is that it’s not about them. It’s about who we are and what we do well. We want to put up a fight and show the heart we know we have in this team.”
