‘New look’ Coral Reef girls soccer advances to GMAC final against district rival Ferguson
Usually losing seven starters and a total of nine seniors spells rebuilding time.
But nobody bothered to tell that to Coral Reef girls soccer coach Deano Nunez. Despite being a magnet school that “can’t bring anybody in from anywhere,” Nunez hasn’t missed a beat as the Barracudas are right back on top of the heap when it comes to public school girls soccer in Miami-Dade County.
Another example of that came early Wednesday evening when, led by junior and team captain Tianna Rivera, Coral Reef came through with a 2-0 victory over TERRA in a GMAC semifinal contest at Tropical Park.
And with that, the Barracudas moved their record to 16-1-2 and advance to Friday’s championship game where they will take on district rival Ferguson at 5 p.m. at Columbus High School in search of their third consecutive GMAC championship. Ferguson defeated Coral Gables 3-0 in the late semifinal.
“It’s definitely been a process this year with a lot of new faces on the field and we saw a lot of goals go down the graduation aisle last year,” joked Nunez. “But the girls have done a nice job of stepping up, especially Tianna who needed to not only start scoring more goals but needed to step up in a leadership role which she has done for the most part.”
Rivera scored both of her team’s goals and put the Cudas out in front just four minutes into the game. She took a perfect through pass from Daniella Perez to go one-on-one with TERRA keeper Valentina Romeo and knocked it home.
The remainder of the game turned in to an act of frustration for Rivera, her teammates and even Nunez as he watched in frustration from the sideline as his girls peppered Romeo throughout the game with numerous scoring chances, only to be turned away by either missed shots or some great saves by Romeo.
“It was nice to get the early lead but definitely frustrating throughout the game because we should’ve been building our lead but just couldn’t find the net,” said Rivera. “Fortunately we stayed with it and once I got that second goal, I knew we would be good.”
Rivera’s second goal came with just eight minutes left following a nice crossing pass from Katherine Diaz giving Reef its much sought insurance goal.
It came just six minutes after TERRA (8-2-2) had its best scoring chance of the game. That when Alexandra Ortega beat Coral Reef keeper Emma Diaz to a loose ball in front of the net and stretched to get her left foot on the ball which she did but the ball went just inches wide of the left post.
Said Nunez: “Finishing and actually putting the ball in the net along with a lot of up and down play has been an issue for us all season. But I guess that’s what happens when you put new young faces out on the field. It’s all a learning process and now we’re looking forward to Friday to see if we can pull off a GMAC three-peat.”
▪ Ferguson 3, Coral Gables 0: Gabriela Arellano and Rebeka Mejia tag teamed for the scoring punch in the second game (each had a goal and an assist) while goalkeeper Sophia Blanco pitched the shutout in front of the net to lead the way for the Falcons.
Arellano dropped a perfect ball off a corner kick that Mia Ramos knocked home just before the first-half water break to give Ferguson (14-2-2) a lead it would never lose.
Arellano scored her goal four minutes into the second half to make it 2-0 off an assist from Mejia before Mejia finished things off with an unassisted goal with 18 minutes left to wrap up the scoring. Gables fell to 10-5-2.