The Cornersville Lady Bulldogs did everything but put the ball in the back of the net on Thursday evening, as they had to settle for a 0-0 tie on the road with new District 11-A-AA foe Culleoka because of a stellar performance from Lady Warrior goaltender Ashlind James.

Having crushed Culleoka 12-0 in their lone meeting last season, the Lady Bulldogs (0-2-1, 0-1-1 District) completely controlled the action in Thursday's contest and outshot the Lady Warriors 25-5 overall, including a 15-3 advantage in the second half.

'Just unlucky'

Cornersville, however, was unable to get anything past James, who finished with 15 saves in the game, while the Lady Bulldogs had a number of shots sail just wide of the Culleoka net.

"We were just unlucky and this was a really frustrating game. What makes it a lot worse is that we came so close to scoring several times and just couldn't get it in," said Lady Bulldog coach Lindsey Browning. "We started pressing some especially in the last 10 minutes of the game. We started getting frustrated when we couldn't score."

Senior striker Amala Elder led Cornersville by attempting 13 shots, while Jessica Dunn and Anna Claire Foster took six and four shots respectively. Gloria Palma and Autumn Sheroski registered one shot apiece for the Lady Bulldogs as well.

Shutout

In net, Cornersville goaltender Hope Taylor tallied five saves en route to recording her first career shutout.

Sophomore striker Avery Nowlin and Ashlee Hill paced Culleoka (0-2-1, 0-2-1 District) with two shots each, while Whitney Duke attempted one shot.

The Lady Warriors best scoring chance came early in the contest when Nowlin broke into the clear and had a wide open shot at the Lady Bulldog net in the fifth minute, but Taylor scooped up Nowlin's low, skidding shot to keep Culleoka off the board.

James then stopped a couple of close range shots by Dunn midway through the first half before catching a line drive shot by Elder in the 40th minute after Elder had run down a loose ball in front of the Lady Warrior net.

Tough defender

In the second half, James made a pair of diving saves on shots by Elder and Dunn in the first 10 minutes of the stanza before stopping three more shots by Elder over the next three minutes.

After coming up empty on several scoring chances over next 20 minutes, Cornersville came tantalizingly close to breaking the deadlock in the waning moments of the game, but James deflected a pair of close range shots by Palma and Dunn to salvage the 0-0 tie for Culleoka.