After a strong performance in the Battle of Ironwood Invitational, the lady Trojans would go into one regular season game before preparing for another tournament. They played away at Madison Highland Prep and wanted to secure a crucial victory after losing in the final round of the tournament to ALA- West Foothills in penalty kicks.
The Madison Highland Heat had a solid start to their season coming into the game against the Trojans. The Trojans' momentum would be hard for the Heat to handle. It would turn out to be a one-sided game in the Trojans favor. The Trojans put too many shots up for the Heat to stop them all. The girls had a combined 34 shots, showing insane pressure on the Heat's back line and goalie. Junior Abigail Stipp would get a hat trick, scoring three goals on seven shots. Following her would be Sophomore Angie Snape with two goals with three shots total. Other notable players who had many shots were Sophomore Sydney Paschich with five shots, and Freshman Tatum Mitchell with four shots. Madison Highland would sneak a goal in on Senior Melody Clauss, although Melody made 5 saves. It was a great game for the lady Trojans.
The first game of the Benjamin Franklin tournament was against River Valley. River Valley had many high scoring games coming into this tournament, and it would be a tough game for either team to win. The Trojans held the high scoring River Valley team to only one goal. Although, the Trojans could not answer back and would end up losing 1-0 to the Dust Devils. The second game of the day was against Thatcher. Thatcher has a history of always being a dominant and good team. The Trojans and the Eagles were having a stalemate throughout the game, but Thatcher ended up getting a goal in. The Trojans could not make any chances happen and had a heartbreaking loss 1-0 to the Eagles.
The second day of the tournament consisted of two games. The first game was against Mohave, who are in 4A, one division higher than the Trojans. Even though the Thunderbirds are a division higher, the Trojans fought hard but could not keep up. The Thunderbirds kept scoring and beat the Trojans 4-0. The second game would be against the defending 3A state champs, Benjamin Franklin. The Trojans and Chargers would go back and forth putting in two goals making it 2-2. Although the Chargers put in a shot up in the end and scored, making it 2-3, Chargers win.
Senior Faith Dibley shared about how the team would bounce back after the tournament saying, "we played well, and the teams we played were pretty good. We were right there with the teams we played, and we just came up short every game. We lost 2-3 to Ben Franklin, but they were the defending state champs. So, the results show that we fell short, but we played well and are a good team that is connecting with each other. The lows of the early season have not affected the team, because we know we can win games, even playing against high-level competition. We can't base the rest of our season off these early wins and losses, because every game is different. We will play hard every game."
