First-time district champs

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First-time district champs

Sports

Wednesday, 26 January 2011 12:53

News-Gazette Photo/Andrew Sullivan

Harmony’s Sage Leffew scored a goal during the Lady Longhorns 3-1 win over Eustis Friday for the 4A District 6 championship.

Lady Longhorns dismantle Eustis, 3-1, for soccer title

By Ken Jackson
Sports Writer
Harmony High’s girls soccer team added a big, bold check mark to their list of goals and accomplishments on Friday.
But, doing so added five more lines to the checklist, by the sounds of it.
The Lady Longhorns claimed their first district title, winning the 4A-6 championship, 3-1, over host Eustis. Sage Leffew, Emily Johnson and Kendall Pollock scored and the team displayed its familiar dose of lockdown defense. The Panthers’ goal came off a 18-yard free kick. It was the first surrendered in over a month, and only the fourth all season.
The win means that regional playoff soccer returns to Harmony High for the first time since 2008, when the boys won their district. The Longhorns (14-1) will host Belleview, the runner-up in District 5, tonight at 7 p.m.

Harmony got first-half goals from Leffew and Johnson to build a 2-0 lead, then the Longhorns spent the rest of the night protecting it. HHS Coach Stephanie Jones said her team was mentally and physically ready for Eustis, who beat Harmony three times last year (regular season, district championship, regional semifinal).
“It was probably one of our best games, the girls came out hard,” she said. “Our keys were not to give up any early goals, and hit them hard early, which we did with those early goals.”
While they didn’t win the district title last year, they played in the regional playoffs as the runner-up and traveled to Gainesville Eastside and won.
But, the district title was very important for a group of eight seniors who Jones has worked with and coached since their freshman year. They’ve made important strides each season, and winning a district title filled a conspicuous hole in their four-year resume.
“I don’t think (goalkeeper) Kaylee Horn let go of the trophy the entire way home,” Jones said. “It doesn’t get any better for a coach than to watch a group come up who set goals every year and worked so hard to make them.
“Their freshman year, it was a winning record. The next year, they beat St. Cloud for the first time. Last year, they made the regionals.”
And, this year, it was to put an oak trophy of their own in the trophy case.
“All that we’ve been through together makes this district championship so special,” Jones said Monday. “It’s been days and I’m still nearly beyond words.”
Still, no level of satisfaction has been reached, she said. Winning each upcoming match, one at a time (it’d take five to win a Class 4A title), are the next entries on the team’s list of goals.
“I’m not into Facebook, but one of our kids’ pages over the weekend said, ‘District champs, now let’s go get more.’ And that’s a freshman,” Jones said.
Belleview comes into tonight’s game with a 17-6 record and has appeared in the regional playoffs in five of the last nine seasons. This is the third year in a row the Rattlers are district runners-up to Eastside.
“We take each game as it comes; we don’t know much about Belleview, but we take nothing for granted,” Jones said. “Our philosophy is that nothing bad ever came of just playing hard for 80 minutes.
“Something we came to believe early in the season, and something that I have to remind them of sometimes, is that no team is not worthy of our best.”
With a win tonight, the Longhorns would host the Eustis-Gainesville Eastside winner.
In the boys district tournaments on Monday, Liberty was eliminated by Sebring and Harmony lost to Tavares in the 5A-5 and 4A-6 tournaments.
All of Tuesday’s games were canceled due to the impending inclement weather and pushed back to Wednesday night.