American Heritage finds the mark in the second half to return to the state final

Cindy Marcial had been down this avenue many times before.

The veteran coach who has five state championships coaching the Plantation American Heritage girls soccer program kept harping to her girls a halftime.

“Just stay with it, turn and shoot, turn and shoot,” she pleaded.

Her players listened.

After enduring a frustrating scoreless first half in which they completely dominated, doing everything except put the ball in back of the net, the Patriot players “stayed with it” and eventually scored four times in the second half and cruised to a 4-1 victory over Winter Garden Horizon in a Class 5A state semifinal on Tuesday afternoon at Spec Martin Stadium.

The Heritage girls boarded the bus to go back home but they’ll be back on Friday to defend the Class 5A championship they won last year as they take on North Fort Myers in the championship game at 4 p.m. North Fort Myers shutout Tallahassee Lincoln 3-0 in the other semifinal and will be making its state championship game debut.

“I kept telling the girls when you get the ball you have to shoot it, that this wasn’t going to be a dribbling game, this was going to be a game where it was one-two touch and a shot,” Marcial said. “I think after maybe a few nerves in the first half, they listened to ‘coach Cindy’ and they started popping them in.”

Eight minutes in to the second half, Heritage (15-3-1) finally broke through when Lily Sargent-Burns dropped a perfect crossing pass down in front of the left side of the net. After playing a brilliant first half in which she recorded some pretty impressive saves, Horizon keeper Ellis Henderson couldn’t get to the ball this time as Samantha Villaverde knocked it home.

The Hawks, who had played a conservative defensive game up to that point, laying defenders back in an attempt to keep the game scoreless, were then forced to play a little more aggressively.

That created another opportunity just two minutes after the second half water break when Sargent-Burns made another beautiful pass down low that Jordyn Norwood found and knocked it to make it 2-0.

“I watched a couple of their videos and knew that’s what they were going to do,” Marcial said. “Try and get the tie and go for PKs (penalty kicks) because that’s what they had done in the last game. Once we scored to take the lead, that took care of that.”

But the Hawks (15-4-1) didn’t go away. After having not recorded a single shot on goal the entire game, thanks in part to a conservative game plan but also some stout Heritage defense led by defenders Amanda Caines, Mattie Hall and Zahira Freeman, they took maximum advantage of their only scoring chance when they were awarded their very first corner kick of the game with nine minutes left.

Aida Bell took the corner and when Heritage keeper Jillian Milffe couldn’t get to the ball, Mackenzie Ruel knocked it in to make it 2-1 with seven minutes left.

But by then, the Patriots were rolling on offense and just 90 seconds later Norwood scored her second goal off an assist from Allison Aleman before Aleman scored an unassisted goal herself with 1:51 left to complete the scoring.

“When I went back in the second half, my coach kept telling me to just turn and shoot,” said Norwood, a junior transfer from Western. “I started to realize there wasn’t a defender on me and figured out I had more space to control the ball and shoot it as opposed to the first half where maybe we were shooting it too early. The first half was definitely a little frustrating because we felt like we should’ve been up by two or three at halftime. But we listened to what coach told us and it all worked out.”

The Patriots will be looking for state title number 13 when they take the field Friday which would put them just two behind state-leading St. Thomas Aquinas (which is going for number 16 this week) and one behind Orange Park St. Johns Country Day. The title game is a place the program has become quite familiar with over the last two decades and one where they rarely lose having compiled a 12-3 mark in 15 appearances.

“We’re excited to get back up here on Friday and go for number 13,” Marcial said. “The girls have worked hard to get to this point and it’s time to hopefully finish it off.”