Harmony’s stranglehold on the Orange Belt Conference girls’ soccer championship is over. At least for now.
Anna Balda and Erin Ozyurek each scored goals and sophomore goalie Carly Robbins recorded five saves as third-seeded Celebration defeated top-seed Harmony, 2-1, in Thursday night’s OBC championship game.
The Storm win snapped Harmony’s reign of 12 consecutive outright (10) or shared (2) OBC Championships. It also lifted Celebration to 10-1 on the season as they remained undefeated against county opposition. Harmony fell to 5-3, losing for the first time in five matches.
“Harmony did a great job with their attack, but I was so happy with how we held our form and made sure to stay in position,” Storm head coach Rebecca Camis said. “We were able to pick up a couple of goals on counter attacks and that was the game plan coming in. They (Longhorns) are so sound with both their offense and defense, so we knew we had to take advantage of our limited opportunities and where able to do so with a couple of quick counter goals.”
Although the Longhorns controlled the majority of possession time in the first half, neither team had a lot of good looks on offense until the 32-minute mark of the first half when Balda took a through ball from Mayah Casamalhuapa and came racing down the left flank. She fired a hard shot that goalie Karla Marrero made a great save on but the rebound came right back to Balda, who buried her second attempt into the left corner of the net for a 1-0 lead.
Celebration made that lead stand up until the midway through the second half. With Harmony pressing, the Storm got a steal and a breakaway on the other end with Ozurek burying her 13th goal of the season to make it a 2-0 contest with 29 minutes remaining in the second half.
For the most of the first half, Harmony was attacking the middle but would watch as Robbins would come off her line on numerous occasions to collect through balls. Trailing 1-0, Harmony’s best chances of tying the game in the first half came at the 24 minute mark when a shot from the right side by AJ Scheuer just missed the corner of the net and a free kick from 35 yards out a few minutes later was stopped by Robbins and the loose ball in front of the goal was cleared away by defenders.
“Our execution in the final third was simply not very good. We kept attacking the middle and their goalie did a great job on deciding when to come off her line to collect the ball,” Harmony coach Scott Marlega said. “At halftime, we talked about hitting more balls diagonally and attacking from the wings and we did a pretty good job of that in the second half, but we just did not take advantage of our opportunities. “
Still, the Longhorns were able to get back in the game with eight minutes to go. After a Celebration foul, Harmony’s Rebekah Wiles took the free kick from about 35 yards out. Her high shot was on target and eluded the out-stretched arms of Robbins to find the back of the net as the Longhorns cut the lead to 2-1.
“We definitely got some momentum after Wiles got us into striking range and I thought we played pretty well down the stretch,” Marlega said. “Give them the credit, however, as they did what they had to do to win.”
Not only was it Celebration’s first out-right OBC championship, Camis believes it was the first time in school history that the Storm has come away with a victory over Harmony. Prior to Thursday’s win, Celebration was 0-11-1 against Harmony in the last 12 games and have been outscored 67-3 in those games – including nine shutouts.
“Really proud of the way we played tonight,” Camis added. “They have pretty much dominated us over the last decade and to win this one on the road for the OBC championship means so much to us.”
In the third-place game, Karen Prado’s free kick with 10 seconds left from almost 40 yards out bounced into the net as St. Cloud (3-5) defeated the Panthers (4-4), 2-1. “We constantly preach that you play to the last whistle,” St. Cloud coach Shawn Beck said. “Tonight was a great example of that.”
In other consolation action, Poinciana picked up fifth place points with a 6-3 win over Tohopekaliga.
