MCHS looks to upset E.D. White

The Morgan City Tigers have never beaten E.D. White in the Tigers’ soccer history.
The Tigers have never made it past the regional round of the prep soccer playoffs, either.
When the Tigers take the field for their Division II regional round contest Thursday at 6 p.m., the Tigers will face none other than E.D. White.
Morgan City (11-8-3) fell to E.D. White (16-7-3) twice during the regular season by scores of 3-0 in Thibodaux on Jan. 8 and 1-0 in Morgan City on Jan. 27.
E.D. White, the No. 6 seed, enters Thursday’s contest after knocking off No. 27 Bastrop, 6-0, in the first round.
Morgan City, the No. 11 seed, defeated No. 22 West Ouachita, 8-0, in other first-round action.
In E.D. White, Morgan City soccer coach Trevor Patterson said his team will face an opponent that can do a lot of things right, but don’t have one main scorer.
“E.D. White has great defense, great midfield, great possession, great passing,” Patterson said. “The one thing they lack … is a true scoring machine. They don’t have a true scoring threat. They have enough players (that) they’re going to be at the right place at the right time to put the ball in, but one thing they do lack is somebody that you have to say, ‘hey, that person, he’s going to dribble through 10 guys and score,’ so we have that to our advantage knowing they don’t have that.”
What the Tigers also know, Patterson said, is that two of the Cardinals’ regular season goals against Morgan City came off of errors and two on corner kicks.
“They look for set plays,” Patterson said of the Cardinals.
To beat E.D. White, the Tigers will have to, most importantly, score first.
“Like I told them, we want to come out. We want to get pressure on them and then make them panic,” Patterson said. “I think if we can score first, we can control the game a lot better … because of the fact that they do get frustrated very easily.”
On the Tigers’ end, they will have to contend with adapting to the Cardinals’ turf field, which Patterson said is not like normal turf and the ball isn’t absorbed by it.
“It’s almost like playing on cement with carpet on top of it, so it’s very fast,” he said.
Regardless of who comes out on top, Patterson said he doesn’t think the game will be a blowout.
“I think we are evenly matched. … I feel confident that our boys, they’re not going to give up,” Patterson said. “They’re going to play to the end no matter what.”