Sudden victory

Girls high school soccer tournaments

Champion tops Irish on Craley’s OT goal

By CHUCK HOUSTEAU

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

CHAMPION — Champion High’s Jessica Craley saved the biggest and best kick of her soccer career for overtime of the Division II sectional championship game against Ursuline.

Craley lofted a high arching kick from 37-yards out and from the extreme right sideline with 10:14 in overtime that found the back of the net and gave the Flashes a 3-2 sudden death win over the Irish.

“This is the greatest day of my life,” said an excited Craley after the contest. “I thought I was going to flub it or muff it but I got it all and the ball took off and landed just over the arms of their goalie.

“What an exciting feeling.”

The game winning kick advanced the third-seeded Flashes (10-3-5) into a district semifinal game against top-seeded Warren JFK on Monday at Warren’s Mollenkopf Stadium.

The win negated a tremendous effort by the unseeded Irish (8-9-1) who hung with Champion the entire game and staged a comeback that resulted in a game-tying goal by Briana Curd with 2:19 left in regulation.

“This is tournament time and this is the way these games go,” said Champion coach Dan Houle. “You wipe out the records and play as hard as you can.

“It had to be fun for these fans to watch this game. It wasn’t one-sided and it ended in fantastic fashion.”

Ursuline coach Al Conti was proud of his team’s effort but said it wasn’t quite good enough.

“Our kids played their hearts out,” Conti said. “They played hard for eight minutes and then it was a brand new game.

“Those things happen,” Conti said of Craley’s game-winning kick. “It took a great kick by their girl. I don’t think anyone expected that to happen.

“It was one of those situations that if we played 20 games that kind of kick would only happen once.

“Unfortunately it happened tonight.”

It was the Irish, who feature a lineup of mostly underclassmen, that got on the scoreboard first.

Curd scored on an assist from Allison Naples just five minutes into the contest for an early 1-0 Ursuline lead.

Champion tied the game with 28 minutes to go in the first half when Morgan White kicked in a rebound shot after a great save by Ursuline goalkeeper Anita Smith.

Smith got a hand on a great shot attempt by Marissa Walker and knocked the ball out to White who scored for a 1-1 tie.

The Flashes opened the second half with a breakaway score by Taryn Hannah with 28 minutes left in regulation.

Hannah was covered the entire way down the field but somehow got off a kick that found the backside of the goal for a score.

Champion seemed to be in control after Hannah’s goal and it looked like the Flashes were on their way to a victory.

But Curd and her teammates had a little more game left to play.

“You have to play 80 minutes of soccer,” said Houle. “We got lazy at the end and Ursuline got a chance and they were able to tie the score.”

Curd’s kick at 2:19 was just enough to get past Champion’s goalkeeper Taylor Petersal and tie the game.

“I thought we had momentum after that,” Conti said. “We started taking it to them in the overtime session but then [Champion] was able to pull out a win.”

The two teams were nearly even on shot attempts as Champion got off 13 shots to 12 by Ursuline.