Stanfill's hat trick leads Sandites to 6-0 Senior Night rout of Putnam City
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This story was originally written for the Sand Springs Leader.
The Charles Page High School soccer teams went in different directions this season, with the boys going winless while the girls are still enjoying their best season in program history.
The girls (12-4) ended the regular season with a 6-0 senior night rout of Putnam City (3-12) Monday at Memorial Stadium and will travel to Broken Arrow (11-1) Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. for the playoffs.
“Great ending to a great regular season,” said head coach Cisco Chavez. “Moving forward…we’re done with the regular season. It’s out of our minds and we’re focused on postseason.”
The Lady Sandites haven’t made it to the playoffs since 2012 and likely haven’t won a playoff game since 1988, though records for the program are spotty at best.
While past successful teams have often been senior-loaded, this year’s unit is led by a lot of younger players, including freshman forward Lainey Stanfill, who scored a hat trick with two assists in Monday’s regular season finale.
Alyssa Cunningham scored the first goal of the game in the 18th minute on a second-effort kick after her first shot was smacked down by the goalie.
Stanfill had her first two shots on goal saved late in the first half and the Sandites only led 1-0 at halftime.
In the 52nd minute Stanfill juked past the Putnam goalie and tapped in a leftie layup to ignite a scoring frenzy from the home team.
Karsen Lynch scored a header off a blocked shot from Stanfill three minutes later, then Stanfill drilled her second goal from 25 yards out in the 65th minute.
Stanfill booted her 23rd goal of the season in the 70th minute, then freshman Ashlee Feigenbaum connected on her first goal of the year with four minutes left on an assist from Cunningham.
“Obviously Lainey’s had one heck of a season, but it’s really been this team,” said Chavez. “They’re something special. They all gel well, they all cheer each other on.”
“That last goal - we’ve been cheering for Ashlee to get her goal. She’s hit the crossbar so many times and she finally got it on Senior Night, so it’s a pretty cool ending. All the girls were happy for her.”
“This is a team that’s together, and that’s what I’m most proud of.”
Moriah Literell recorded the clean sheet in the victory.
The boys suffered a 6-0 loss despite a seven-save effort from freshman goalie Eddie Hernandez.
The game stayed scoreless till the final ten minutes of the first half, and the Sandites only trailed 2-0 at halftime before the Pirates got hot late in the second half.
“This was a rebuilding year from the beginning, and we knew that going in,” said first-year head coach Brent Lollis. “What we did this year was, we played the youngest 6A team in the state all season.”
“They’re essentially a team that got a full year of varsity experience that the other guys their age didn’t get. So building into next year, I think these boys are going to be better for the experience that they got this year.”
“They grew together, they did a lot of things that needed to happen at Sand Springs to build a program. They raised a bunch of money, they got new training equipment, they got new uniforms, they did a lot of things that are building blocks.”
“One of the things that I think it’s important for people to know is that the goal of our team here is to build a program at Sand Springs that can compete every year without relying on star players.”
Between matches, the Sandites celebrated seniors Alisa Gramm, Litterell, Lynch, Evelin Marino, Jade Patton, Jocelyn Sigala, Cassidy Tiepelman, Evan Bise, Ryan Clark, Justin Guynn, Shawn Hayes, Kyle Haynes, and Tyson Wright.
