Lourdes Academy girls’ soccer wins thriller vs. Doral to return to state semifinals
As a defender, Mariana Rionda doesn’t score very often, but all day she had a feeling she would come through for Lourdes Academy in the Region 4-Class 6A championship Tuesday.
She had, after all, done it a year earlier in the final minute of regulation in Lourdes’ come-from-behind win against St. Thomas Aquinas in the region final, knocking in a header to force extra time and set the stage for a win in a penalty shootout. In the waning minutes Tuesday, she had a pair of chances to live up to her clutch reputation and, once again, she came through, converting a corner kick in the 77th minute for the decisive goal in a 1-0 win against Doral Academy in Miami.
“I don’t do it often,” she said, “but I do it when it counts.”
The win has Bobcats (16-1-3) into the state semifinals for the third straight year and the sixth time in seven seasons. They’ll host Land O’ Lakes in the 6A semifinals Friday back at Christopher Columbus High School.
The lone goal Tuesday came near the end of 80 back-and-forth minutes in front of a packed crowd at Columbus. There was no shortage of scoring chances — enough to need two hands to count for both teams — yet neither found a breakthrough until those final minutes, when Lourdes finally wore down Doral (14-5-1) with a bevvy of set pieces.
In the 76th minute, the Bobcats got a corner kick and lined up from the left side. The cross bounced right in front of the goal mouth and hopped high into the air, forcing a save over the crossbar to give Lourdes another corner. This time, the Bobcats set up on the right side and Lourdes junior Katerina Puig fired a cross past all the chaos in front of the goal. Rionda was in the right place at the right time.
“I had a feeling I was scoring today,” Rionda said.
In the final minute, the Bobcats senior even came up with a clutch tackle on the defensive end, breaking up the Firebirds’ final scoring chance when Doral briefly had a chance to get a run up the middle.
Although Lourdes came through in the end, the Firebirds had the best scoring chance of the game when the Bobcats committed a foul in the box to give Doral a penalty kick in the 59th minute.
With the game scoreless, Lourdes junior Gabriella Paredes dove to her left to keep her clean sheet intact and give the Bobcats a chance to win in regulation.
“Yesterday, we stayed here for a while,” said David Fique, the Bobcats’ first-year coach, who spent the last four seasons as an assistant coach. “We told her, She goes left, so just stick to it and if you stop it, good. If not, it is what it is.”
