Richmond Hill girls soccer team's undefeated season ends in overtime loss
· Yahoo Sports
The Richmond Hill girls soccer team entered Monday night's Class 6A state quarterfinal matchup with visiting Harrison undefeated and battle-tested after edging Norcross in overtime in its second round game.
And as the match with Harrison was winding down, it looked like the Wildcats were ready to punch their ticket to the state semifinals.
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But Harrison kept the pressure on and got the break it needed in the 78th minute. Richmond Hill keeper Kamryn Martinez turned back a couple shots, but Hoya junior Natalie Young was able to pick up the ball out of the scrum in front of the net and score the equalizer that sent the match to overtime tied 1-1.
A moment later, Martinez and defender Edyne Perry-Anderson went down in a collision with a hard-charging Hoya striker. Martinez suffered a bloody nose, and returned for the final seconds of regulation. But she was on the sideline in concussion protocol when Addison Cronemeyer flicked a shot into the net eight minutes into the first overtime.
The goal stood up for Harrison, as the Hoyas edged the Wildcats 2-1. Harrison improved to 16-4 on the season and will face Walton in semifinal matchup on Thursday at a site to be annouced.
It was the first loss of the year for the Wildcats, who closed out a memorable season with a 19-1 record.
Richmond Hill took a 1-0 lead in the 34th minute on a well-placed corner kick by Brooke Norris that Ella Brooking nearly got her head onto. But when the ball found the ground, sophomore Karley Schultz was there to convert from point blank range as the Wildcats took a lead that would stand until two minutes remained in regulation.
It was an emotional sideline as it was the final game for seven Wildcat seniors, but Coach Shawn Allen's team has a lot of talent coming back . There were just three seniors in the starting lineup Monday in Martinez, who has signed with Dalton State College, along with Peterson, the star forward who has signed with Virginia Military Institute, and standout defender Satori Bell.
"We played great for most of the game, we just slacked off at the end there when we needed to be stronger and finish things out," said Allen, in his second year leading the program. "They scored that goal late and just kind of grabbed the momentum from there. We played good enough to win, but it just slipped out of our hands in the last couple minutes."
But it was another strong campaign for the Richmond Hill team, which rolled to its fifth straight region title, and the future looks bright. Allen said his message to the girls in the locker room would be positive.
"We'll talk about some of the things that we learned from this game," Allen said . "We're losing just a few starters to graduation and have a strong team returning. So we'll take it as a learning experience and move on."
Allen said he loved working with this team, one of the best in Richmond Hill history.
"Their resiliency impressed me this year," he said. "We've been down multiple times and we were able to come back, unfortunately not tonight, but that was something we worked on ― being able to gather ourselves and keep playing. The level gets a little higher in the playoffs, so we just need to step our level up a little bit."
Dennis Knight covers sports for the Savannah Morning News. Contact him at [email protected]. Twitter: @DennisKnightSMN
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Richmond Hill girls soccer team suffers first loss in state quarterfinals