Dorosy sisters lead St. Thomas Aquinas to 14th state title in girls’ soccer
Leave it to a couple of sisters to be on the same page.
With the Fort Lauderdale St. Thomas Aquinas and Oviedo girls’ soccer teams locked in a tight, defensive, scoreless battle and just five minutes from heading to overtime in the Class 5A state championship game, the Dorosy sisters — senior Dallas and sophomore Isabella — turned in some symmetrical magic together one last time.
That’s because the two teamed up for what turned out to be the game-winning goal with just under five minutes left, snapping the scoreless tie to lead the Raiders to a 2-0 victory over Oviedo on Saturday afternoon at Eastern Florida State College.
And with that, the most decorated high school girls’ soccer program in the state adds one more trophy to its trophy case as Aquinas won its 14th state championship, second in a row and fourth in the past five years.
Ranked No. 2 in the nation in the most recent MaxPreps poll, St. Thomas finished the season 24-1, a 1-0 loss to Cypress Bay late in the regular season the only blemish. Their nearest pursuer in titles is Plantation American Heritage, which won its ninth title Friday night.
The winning goal was set up when Dallas Dorosy got to a loose ball in the middle of the field, fed a perfect pass to sister Isabella, who then beat an Oviedo defender to go one-on-one with Lions goalkeeper Reagan Funaro. Isabella didn’t hesitate, and rifled a shot into the top right corner of the net with 4:45 left.
With Oviedo defenders pushing up in a desperate attempt to score the tying goal, that created offensive chances for the Raiders. And sure enough, Isabella Martinez and Isabella Dorosy got a two-on-one chance with less than a minute to go, and Martinez fed a pass to Dorosy, who knocked it in for her second goal with 44 seconds left.
“The ball was cleared from the other team and Dallas fed me a perfect pass,” Isabella said of the game winner. “I turned and got a move on the defender and I was in the clear. I just wanted to pick a spot, release the ball and not over-dribble. What a great moment.”
Great moment indeed as sisters playing together for the final time in their high school careers read each other’s minds for the final time.
“It’s great. I found her and knew she could make the turn and she did,” said Dallas, who will head to Florida State next fall to help the Seminoles try and defend their national championship. “Since we’re sisters, we always seem to know what each other is doing on the field, she’ll be there for me and I’ll be there for her and we did it one last time, and that was pretty cool.”
Said long-time Raiders coach Carlos Giron, who has been there for all 14 titles and is now an incredible 14-2 in 16 state championship games: “They’re two very special girls and I know they’re going to miss each other next year.”
For the first 60 minutes of the game, it was a tightly contested defensive battle with neither team enjoying any kind of quality opportunity.
Finally, with 18 minutes left, the Raiders started to press the issue and create some chances, the best of which came with 14 minutes left when the same sister team, Dallas and Isabella, nearly scored when the former crossed a nice ball in front of the net with the latter waiting, But Funaro barely got there first.
“I told them to start keeping the ball on the ground, pass the ball and open up the game,” Giron said. “We had been trying to force everything into the middle for a good portion of the game and it wasn’t working. I told the girls to move to the outside, spread them out and knew they [Oviedo] wouldn’t be able to keep up the pace we were playing. Once we started doing that, they started backing up on defense and that’s when you could feel that we were wearing them down.”
This story was originally published February 7, 2015 at 6:36 PM with the headline "Dorosy sisters lead St. Thomas Aquinas to 14th state title in girls’ soccer."