Three-way dance: Tussle for 6-6A playoff spots down to final night of season

PLANO, TX – It’s only fitting that one of the most competitive soccer districts in the Metroplex has plenty riding on the final night of the regular season.

Only one round of district matchups remains in 6-6A girls soccer, with the conference’s playoff picture far from finished. Whereas the 6-6A boys teams concluded play on Tuesday with its top four postseason qualifiers intact — Marcus seeded No. 1, Coppell seed No. 2, Flower Mound seeded No. 3 and Plano seeded No. 4 — the girls still have two playoff berths up for grabs and three teams vying for one of those spots.

Here’s a look at what’s on the line Monday for those programs, as well as the others in the 6-6A postseason picture.

1. Flower Mound

The Lady Jaguars have been able to rest easy for a while now. Although the road was a little bumpier than last season, Flower Mound is atop the 6-6A table for the second straight year. The Lady Jaguars locked up the top spot in the conference standings on March 9 after outlasting Plano, 2-1 — a rewarding outcome for a team that had an undefeated regular season cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic last spring.

Building off that performance against Plano with a 3-0 shutout of Coppell on March 12, the Lady Jaguars currently sit at 10-1-2 and 32 points with a district-high plus-25 goal differential. Flower Mound is rounding into form as well, winning its past five matches by a combined margin of 18-1.

Concluding its regular season Monday on the road against Plano, Flower Mound’s biggest initial hurdle may very well be avoiding any malaise at the start of the postseason after playing just one match since March 12.

2. Marcus

Much like their city rivals, the Lady Marauders are assured a relatively stress-free end to the regular season. Marcus booked a return trip to the postseason thanks to a 5-1 win over Plano East on Tuesday and enters the week at 7-2-4 and 25 points in second place.

Similar to Flower Mound, Marcus is on a roll at the right time as well. Since a 3-2 loss to the Lady Jaguars on March 1 — a match the Lady Marauders led 2-0 — Marcus has recovered by going 4-0-1 with wins over playoff contenders Hebron and Coppell.

The Lady Marauders have a three-point lead on third-place Hebron, who Marcus swept in head-to-head play. That means, regardless of Monday’s results, the Lady Marauders are assured the district’s No. 2 seed for the playoffs. Marcus concludes its regular season at home Monday against Lewisville.

3. Hebron

Here’s where the fun begins. The Lady Hawks are as hot as any team in the area right now, ramping up their level of play after last month’s winter storms to amass a stretch of 6-1-1 to skyrocket up the district standings.

Hebron (7-4-2, 23 points) will need one more win Monday at home against Plano West to assure a spot in the playoffs. The Lady Hawks saw the Lady Wolves recently in a 2-1 victory on March 8, although head coach Robert Vaughn is well aware of the dangers West poses in Monday’s rematch. After blanking Lewisville 6-0 on March 12, Vaughn called the Lady Wolves “the most dangerous team in the district.”

A win over West locks in the Lady Hawks at No. 3 in the district standings, but a loss doesn’t unravel things completely. Should Flower Mound defeat Plano in its regular-season finale, Hebron is still assured a playoff spot.

If West tops Hebron, however, the Lady Hawks’ seed could fluctuate depending on the result of Monday’s meeting between East and Coppell. A Hebron loss or draw, coupled with a Flower Mound win and a Coppell win, would vault the Cowgirls into third place and the Lady Hawks into fourth — not an ideal place to be with a bi-district matchup against undefeated, top-ranked Prosper as the reward.

There’s a scenario where Hebron and Coppell wind up tied at 23 points if Hebron loses and Coppell ties with East. In that case, the Lady Hawks get the nod thanks to the district’s fourth tiebreaker for total district wins.

4. Coppell

Just like Hebron, the Cowgirls are in win-and-in mode on Monday. Coppell (6-3-4, 22) has a date at Buddy Echols Field against seventh-place East — a team the Cowgirls took care of in their first meeting on March 8, 3-0.

If Coppell can replicate that result, it’ll be headed to the postseason. Excluding last year’s abbreviated campaign, the Cowgirls have made the playoffs every year since 2001.

Also like Hebron, a loss doesn’t rule out a postseason spot either. A Coppell loss to East, coupled with a Flower Mound win over Plano, still puts the Cowgirls into the playoffs.

As Coppell tries to take care of business, fans should have a watchful eye on the happenings at Hawk Stadium. As noted above, the Cowgirls can leapfrog Hebron for the No. 3 seed with a win and a Lady Hawk loss or draw.

A draw against East does Coppell no favors in a tie with Hebron, but the opposite applies should the Cowgirls wind up gridlocked with Plano at 22 points. That scenario arises if Coppell loses and Plano draws with Flower Mound — under those circumstances, the Cowgirls get the tiebreaker due to winning the head-to-head series with the Lady Wildcats, 1-0-1.

But should Plano top Flower Mound, a Coppell draw or loss would leave the Cowgirls on the outside of the playoff picture.

5. Plano

The Lady Wildcats entered last week in control of their own destiny only to relinquish it Tuesday in a 2-0 loss to West. It was an ill-afforded result for Plano (6-4-3, 21), which now trails Hebron by two points and Coppell by one point.

That puts the Lady Wildcats in must-win mode Monday against district champion Flower Mound. It’s a tall order, no doubt — the two sides just met on March 9 in a 2-1 Lady Jaguar win and Flower Mound has only lost one match since March 2019 — but the Lady Wildcats have shown they can hang with the district’s elite.

Should the Lady Wildcats avenge their prior loss and defeat Flower Mound, they’ll then need some help elsewhere in the district from their two chief rivals. A Plano win and losses by either Coppell or Hebron vaults the Lady Wildcats into the playoffs. Plano can also get in with a win and a Coppell draw.

The dream scenario for Plano is a win over Flower Mound and losses by both the Cowgirls and Lady Hawks, who would shoot the Lady Wildcats all the way up to third place and out of a bi-district matchup with Prosper.

For tiebreaker purposes, the Lady Wildcats would fall short in any gridlock in the standings with either Coppell or Hebron. As mentioned above, the Cowgirls have the head-to-head edge on Plano, while the Lady Hawks would get the nod over Plano off goal differential from their regular-season split (a 2-1 Plano win and a 3-0 Hebron win).