Unbeaten Cardinal Gibbons girls’ soccer secures return trip to state
When you haven’t lost a single soccer game all season, you probably haven’t been behind in a game very often either.
So when the underdog Immaculata La Salle girls’ soccer team took a 1-0 first half lead on favored Cardinal Gibbons on Friday night, it could’ve been a shock to their system.
But having put together one of the best regular seasons in program history, the Chiefs never flinched.
Led by freshman Macy Hall, Gibbons tied it before halftime, and then scored twice in the second half to battle its way to a 3-1 victory in a Region 4-3A final at Gibbons in Fort Lauderdale.
With that, the Chiefs, five years removed from the program’s only state title, punched their ticket for the second straight year to the state final four and will head north next week to the Lake Myrtle Sports Complex in Auburndale.
There, they will find themselves playing a familiar opponent. Chiefs players learned after they had finished off La Salle to improve to 20-0-2 that they will be the No. 2 seed and take on No. 3 Coconut Creek North Broward Prep in an all-Broward County 3A state semifinal on Thursday at 10 a.m.
The Eagles upset defending 3A state champion Boynton Beach Somerset Canyons, 4-2, in penalty kicks after dueling to a 1-1 tie through regulation and overtime in the Region 3-3A final.
North Broward Prep is one of the teams that tied Gibbons back on Nov. 6 when the Eagles scored a late second-half goal to level that match at 1-1.
On Friday against the Royal Lions, Hall scored nine minutes before halftime tying the game and, after Abigail Gillette converted a penalty kick with 25 minutes left in regulation, scored a second time off an assist from Emma Heim with 14:47 left to give the Chiefs an insurance goal and complete the scoring.
“I can’t play without my teammates and no matter what we always have each other’s backs so I just wanted to do whatever I could to help my team tonight and just so excited that I could do that,” said Hall. “My first goal was really big because after we fell behind, we needed something to bring our energy level up and get us going. Once we did that, I thought we’d be alright.”
Even though the Chiefs dominated possession over the first 20 minutes, they couldn’t really create any quality scoring chances. Then, the Royal Lions, stunned Gibbons by scoring on what would be their only shot on goal the entire first half.
It came following a Gibbons foul at midfield creating a free kick for La Salle.
Senna Trafton then got good leg on a long shot down in front of the net that Chiefs goalkeeper Kennedy McCausland could not get to. The loose ball ping ponged around before Sofia Cruces got a foot on it and knocked it in with 19:43 left in the first half.
La Salle (10-8-1) was enjoying a historic season, having come through the bracket as a No. 6 seed with back-to-back overtime road upsets of MAST Academy and Fort Lauderdale Pine Crest to play in its first-ever regional final.
“That definitely caught us off guard, but we did a good job of not pointing fingers at each other or panicking,” said senior co-captain and LSU commit Mia Conard. “We’ve fallen behind before but it’s pretty awesome how we never put our heads down. Macy’s goal was huge because it turned the momentum back in our favor, created a lot of energy and really got us going.”
Hall’s goal came off a direct kick from the right side, 28 yards out after Christina Echevarri fouled Conard. Hall rocketed a right-to-left bender into the top right corner of the net past diving La Salle goalkeeper Olivia Rodriguez-Salum.
La Salle nearly re-took the lead eight minutes into the second half when Cruces found open space in the middle 20 yards out from the net and fired toward the top left corner. That’s when McCausland made the save of the night, diving perpendicular to her right just barely getting a hand on the ball and deflecting it just beyond the left post.
Seven minutes later, Caroline Findley was tripped inside the penalty area prompting a whistle and subsequent penalty kick which Gillette converted. Ten minutes after that, Hall scored her second goal, firing from 20 yards out after a great pass from Heim and the early celebration was under way on the Gibbons bench.
“Macy’s goal was huge and changed the momentum in the game going into halftime,” said veteran head coach Margo Flack, now in her 26th season running the program. “Strangely we’ve actually been behind quite a few times this season and it doesn’t faze them. I’ve kind of said that about this team the whole season. I think it’s one of the best qualities they have as a team, they just play through adversity and it came in handy tonight.”
Flack is hoping that things go a lot better for her team than last year when they took on Orlando Lake Highland Prep in a state semifinal and were promptly shown the door with a lopsided 4-0 loss.
“I’ve learned through the years that you can’t take getting to state for granted, it’s a hard thing to do,” Flack said. “But we have a lot of players who were up there last year so I think having gone through that tough experience will be good for them and hopefully help them this time around. We’re definitely looking forward to taking on North Broward Prep, and think it’s pretty cool that we have an all Broward state semifinal.”