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Sports

Providence Advances With One-Sided Victory

Stars turn in on in the second half in 5-1 win over First Presbyterian.

Providence Christian entered into the Class A boys soccer playoffs on a mission.

After missing the playoffs the last two years, the Stars took it out on First Presbyterian Wednesday in a  5-1 win Wednesday in a first-round game in Lilburn.

The Stars went on a sting of five unanswered goals after First Presbyterian's Joel Hamm scored with 31:23 in the first half for a 1-0 lead.

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Ted Perry scored two goals for Providence to lead the way.

Matt McGlamery tied the game at 1-1 with a goal with 23:35 left in the first half and just over three minutes later Perry scored his first goal to give the Stars a 2-1 lead with 20:29 to go in the first half.

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In the second half, Perry took a throw-in to score at the 19:04 mark for a 3-1 lead. That opened the gates as Ryan Mazzone scored with 14:38 to go for a 4-1 lead and then Taylor Henry, Coach Todd Henry's son, scored on a penalty kick to make it 5-1.

This was the first game that the Stars have had all their varsity players available since early in the season. Evan Pruitt and Reed Spencer also have missed time due to concussions.

"We've been off for two weeks and they got to play Friday," Coach Henry said, referring to First Presbyterian's "play-in" game last week. "We worked them hard last week. Really worked on possessions and moving the ball around. Tonight we came out hard and were ready to play. We were a little sluggish at first but then we did really well switching fields. There's going to be some good defenses out there [in the playoffs] and we can't rely on our throw ins. That's our game is possession ability."

The Stars will play Savannah Country Day, a team that beat the Stars during the 2010 regular season. "We know their field, we know their team," Henry said. "Fortunately we have a tape from last year and AIS will help us out a little bit. They had a tough game down there."

"We have to wake up in the beginning of the game," Mazzone said. "But then when we start playing around we get serious about it we get back in the game."

McGlamery also echoed what his teammate said. "It's really exciting to get into the playoffs," McGlamery said. "No one's really been there before. We just got to get the nervousness out."

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