ROCKINGHAM – When the 33rd President of the United States, Harry S. Truman, coined the phrase “The buck stops here,” he was not talking about current Hamlet Middle School eighth grader Ellie Buck.
In Monday’s Southeastern Middle School Athletic Conference championship game, Buck booted one from right to left between two defenders that rolled towards the bottom of the left goal post. The chaos around the goal caused Rockingham Middle School goalkeeper Macy Steen to miscalculate her block, and the ball rolled right by her hands into the corner of the net.
It was Buck’s second goal of the game and it put Hamlet ahead 2-1 with 4:49 remaining in the first half. The Lady Red Rams never looked back as they defeated their in-county rival 3-1 to claim the title.
“Ellie has scored three goals her whole life, and two of them were today,” said Hamlet head coach Ashleigh Buie. “She usually doesn’t start, but she has been working so hard that I decided to start her. She is the hardest working player on the team, always striving to improve, and today she let it shine.”
The Lady Red Rams started the game aggressively taking two shots on goal just seconds into the game. However, the Lady Rockets turned the tables quickly. At one point, Rockingham managed to keep the ball in Hamlet’s territory for nearly eight minutes.
Hamlet goalkeeper Jaimaya Ratliff deflected two consecutive shots, but the second left her off-balanced, allowing Rockingham’s Karter Walker to chip one into a wide open net for the game’s first score with 15:55 on the first-half clock.
Nearly eight minutes later, Buck connected on her first shot of the game. She launched one from about 20 yards out that sailed over everyone and dropped into the center of the net just below the crossbar. Teammate Kaitlyn Huff scored the game’s final goal just moments into the second half. Huff dribbled passed Steen and tapped it into the undefended net with 28:06 remaining in the game.
The Lady Red Rams avenged a 2-1 home loss to the Lady Rockets earlier in the season, and ending the season with a 9-1-1 record. Rockingham’s undefeated streak came to an end in the title game loss, which it won last year against Ellerbe Middle School, dropping the Lady Rockets to 10-1 on the year.
“I am beyond proud of the girls,” Buie said. “I have been to six championship games in my eight years coaching. Two of them we’ve won on our home field and three of them we played on Rockingham’s field and lost. Today marked my first championship win on their field.”
