Plantation American Heritage boys’ soccer wins back-to-back state titles
Unlike a year ago, there would be little drama for the Plantation American Heritage boys’ soccer team.
Squaring off against Daytona Beach Seabreeze in a rematch of last year’s nailbiting dramatic state final, one which Heritage scored a golden goal with just five seconds left in overtime, much the same was expected on Saturday night.
With the Sandcrabs out to avenge the loss and a huge home crowd behind them, the Patriots never flinched. They used a three-goal barrage in the second half, two goals coming 12 seconds apart, to easily beat Seabreeze 3-0 in a Class 3A state championship game at Spec Martin Stadium.
The championship was the second consecutive and seventh overall for the boys’ program and came just 24 hours after the girls won their 11th title on the same field giving the school a combined 18 soccer championships.
Amazingly though, it marked only the second time the two programs have done it together. 2005 was the other year.
“It was a really tough match for awhile and not something we did not expect because Seabreeze is a great team and there is a reason why they were playing in their third straight championship game,” said Heritage head coach Todd Goodman. “But then we hit about a 10 to 15 minute stretch where we arguably might’ve played some of our best soccer all season and wound up being justly rewarded for that as we basically secured our second straight title.”
After a scoreless first half, Goodman referred to a 10-minute stretch in which his team blitzed Seabreeze (22-2-1) with all three goals to basically silence the crowd and end the issue.
Sebastian Vidarte, who had the game-winning golden goal a year ago, scored first at the 33:44 mark. He rocketed a tight, right-to-left curling shot from 35 yards out that snuck in the right side of the net when Seabreeze keeper Cameron Bowling did not see right away and reacted late, screened out by his teammates.
The Patriots delivered the real dagger eight minutes later. When Benjamin Grossi split two Seabreeze defenders, he easily beat Bowling one-on-one to make it 2-0 with 25:37 left. Then when Heritage’s Miles Watkins won the ensuing face-off for the ball at the center of the field, he dribbled it down the right side, split the defenders again and rocketed another shot past Bowling.
It took all of just 12 seconds as the overmatched Heritage crowd, amidst the sea of red-shirted Seabreeze fans, began to celebrate the title they knew was coming.
“Tonight and all season, it was completely different than last year,” said Vidarte. “We played all season with marks on our back and we knew having beaten them (Seabreeze) last year in the final that they would want to get us back and they had all their fans here tonight. But none of that mattered to us. We know what we can do on the field and have had each other’s backs all season long and it showed out on that field tonight.”
The Patriots found out what life is like as a defending state champion as the struggled to an 11-5-1 regular season and then actually lost their district title game to rival Pines Charter.
“There were a lot of doubters,” said Grossi. “We lost five games and then lost to Pines in districts which I think might’ve been good for us looking back because we knew we would get another shot at them in regionals and it kind of really woke us up and got us going.”
Said Goodman: “Lessons that were learned from those losses that ultimately we used to make us a better team. I’ve always have said that we would rather lose a game and learn something from it rather than beat somebody 8-0 and not learn anything at all. We hoist the trophy again tonight and I couldn’t be more ecstatic and proud of the group of boys that we have.”