Dragons open playoffs Thursday against South Grand Prairie

The Carroll boys soccer team wrapped up the regular season last Friday with a victory over L.D. Bell, and coach Greg Oglesby said that he believes his team is playing pretty well as the playoffs are set to get underway.

Carroll will open the playoffs with South Grand Prairie at 7:45 p.m. Thursday at Nolan Catholic, and Oglesby said that he believes his team will have its hands full.

“They are a very close, very tight, very quick and athletic team,” Oglesby said. “They've got a good pace up top from what my assistant coaches reported, and we're going to have to play well.

“But we have been playing very well defensively. We had the second best defense in the district. I think that our back four will step up and keep us in that game and if we can score a goal or two, we can beat them.”

Carroll defeated Bell by a score of 2-1 on Friday night, and Oglesby said it was a good all-around effort from his team to pull out the victory.

“We played well,” Oglesby said. “Everybody got to play, and it was a good solid win for us. It was a great way to end the season and get ready for the playoffs.”

The Dragons finished third overall in the district standings with a 9-3 mark, and Oglesby said that he is pretty pleased with how things unfolded for his team.

“I'm very pleased to make the playoffs,” Oglesby said. “That's obviously the goal going into the season. We were pretty close to second place, and Coppell kind of ran away with it, which is something we were not expecting from any team. To finish third is great, we were only a couple of points out of second place, and we were the only team to tie Coppell, which was big for us.”

Oglesby said he is feeling pretty good about where is team is as the postseason approaches.

“We're playing well,” Oglesby said. “We're in a good situation. We've had a chance to go and watch them play twice, and we know what we need to do. We're playing well, we've had three days to prepare for them and we're feeling good.”

In order to have a good playoff run, Oglesby said it will take a couple of things from his team.

“I think that once you get past the first game, things certainly aren't easier, but there is a little more of a calm,” Oglesby said. “You get to that ‘been there, done that’ kind of area, because a lot of the kids have never been to the playoffs. So if you can get past that first game and maybe settle down a little bit, you can hopefully relax a little bit and start playing your best.”

This story was originally published March 23, 2015 at 3:45 PM with the headline "Dragons open playoffs Thursday against South Grand Prairie."