During Kristen Barnhill’s tenure as head coach for Southeast Bulloch, the state playoffs have become a normal occurrence.
    Seven years in a row now, the Lady Yellow Jackets have been to the state playoffs and six times they’ve been a three or four seed. However, in spite of being a lower seed six times, they’ve advanced to the second round in four of those instances — so it would be safe to say the underdog role is something SEB has come to embrace.
    “Personally I’ve been an underdog my whole life, so I try to communicate to the girls there’s nothing wrong with that,” Barnhill said. “I believe hard work beats talent, and I know that defines us as a team.”
    This year especially, considering the region SEB played in was so soccer starved. It’s been harped on constantly throughout the season that the Lady Yellow Jackets were never consistently tested, which is true to a certain extent. The Johnson’s and the Groves’ of the world certainly aren’t world-beaters by any means, but SEB played its fair share of quality opponents throughout the regular season.
    Wins over Region 2-AAAAA champion Wayne County and Region 2-AAA runners up Long County indicate SEB is better than its schedule indicated. So if Crisp County doubted they were in for a tough contest in the first round last week, they found out the hard way not to overlook SEB on strength of schedule.
    The Lady Yellow Jackets rebounded after trailing 1-0 to score four unanswered goals, wiping away the Cougars on their home field last Thursday. Four different players would score for SEB, which was a change of pace from the volume scoring received by Cole Robertson and Emily Barnard all season long. Though Robertson and Barnard would find the back of the net against Crisp, Autumn Brown and Shay Buenrostro also contributed to the winning effort.
    “Seeing Autumn and Shay score like that just goes to show how far we’ve come as a team,” Barnhill said. “Autumn has been huge for us in the second half of the season too. Our play has picked up as she’s picked hers up.”
    And while the first round as gone well for SEB in years past, the second round has been a much different story. The three times prior to this season SEB has advanced to the second round, the Lady Yellow Jackets have been outscored 23-0 when competing in the round of 16.
    In 2015 it was a 10-0 loss to Oconee County. In 2014 it was 4-0 to Jackson and in 2011 it was 9-0 to Pike County. As if that wasn’t enough, SEB drew what is arguably the toughest opponent in the entire tournament. Greater Atlanta Christian — brand new to the ranks for Class AAA — didn’t appear to have any trouble transitioning up after an 11-5-2 regular season and a Region 7-AAA championship.
    According to MaxPreps.com, GAC is the No. 2 ranked team in AAA behind only defending state champion Westminster and has the highest rated strength of schedule according to the site’s grading metric.
    On common opponents alone, it would appear SEB is going to be fighting an uphill battle this afternoon. Savannah Arts won Region 3-AAA by a healthy margin, outscoring eight opponents by a 49-3 count including a 4-0 win over SEB. However,  when Savannah Arts hosted GAC back on March 10, the Panthers got stomped 5-0 in what was their worst loss of the season.
    SEB has the horses to to try and match offensive wits with GAC. Barnard and Robertson have combined for 42 goals this season and will most certainly have to be on top of their games if SEB is to pull off another upset in the playoffs.
    “This is a team that lost to Westminster 7-0, a score we lost by to the same team last year,” Barnhill said. “On that alone we know we can hang with them so long as we minimize our mistakes and capitalize on theirs.” 
    SEB travels to Norcross today for their match which is slated to begin at 4:30 p.m. 

    Chris Stanley may be reached at (912) 489-9408.