St. Thomas Aquinas girls’ soccer downs Cooper City, earns another rematch with Lourdes

They spent nearly the entire game mired in frustration.

Even though the St. Thomas Aquinas girls’ soccer team spent most of the evening completely outplaying and dominating Cooper City, the Raiders also spent it nursing a narrow one goal lead that should’ve been a lot larger.

But in the end, thanks to some great defense and one timely insurance goal, Aquinas battled its way to a 2-0 victory over the Cowboys in a Region 4-6A semifinal contest on Friday night at St. Thomas Aquinas.

Next up for the No. 2 seeded Raiders will be a much-anticipated showdown with top seeded Lourdes Academy in a Region 4-6A final next Wednesday, Feb. 21 at 7 p.m. at Columbus High School.

It’s the same Lourdes team that has frustrated St. Thomas three of the last four seasons, ending the Raiders’ season each time in the regional finals. The Aquinas girls program sports the most state titles (15) and won five of them in a seven year span from 2011 to 2017. But the Raiders have not been back to the state final four since then and will be looking to do so next week.

“Lourdes has definitely been our Achilles heel in recent years and I kept telling our girls to take things one game at a time this season and not worry about them until the time arrived,” Aquinas coach Kim Faulkner said. “I guess that time is here. It should be a good one to be at.”

Following a perfectly executed set piece off a corner kick that Miranda Dumornay placed perfectly in front of the net that Genesis Hernandez headed in in the game’s 18th minute, the Raiders (12-4-2) took a 1-0 lead and dominated play from that point on. They did just about everything but put the ball into the back of the net.

Whether it was bad luck, a bad shot or the spectacular play of Cooper City goalkeeper Alyssa Morgan who made an eye-popping 20 saves, St. Thomas could not score for most of the rest of the way.

Finally, with just under 10 minutes left, the Raiders got the insurance goal they were looking for when Madison Poleo threaded a perfect pass down the middle and Sophie Barnes was able to split the two Cowboy defenders creating a one-on-one with Morgan and knocked it home.

“Yeah, Cooper City did a good job and their keeper was tough and made some nice saves so it was just a matter of staying with it,” Hernandez said. “We just relied on our defense and just kept shooting and shooting and eventually we knew we’d get another one in and put things away.”

Hernandez mentioned the defense and that’s what won things for the Raiders on this night. Aniya Harriott and Lauryn Smith were the last line of defense all night long and never allowed the Cowboys (12-5-2) to get a single quality shot on goal all night, making things pretty easy for goalkeeper Camryn McEwen.

“We played the best team defense that we played all season tonight,” Faulkner said. “And playing great defense is how you win championships. Defense will always win championships.”

As far as the next challenge of Lourdes, Hernandez said she’s ready.

“We all know that Lourdes is our biggest rival and me being a senior, this will be my last shot,” Hernandez said. “I just know that if we play like this, we’ll get the result we want but it’s going to be a big fight.”