Historically, Harmony has all but owned the Orange Belt Conference girls’ soccer championship and that trend continued Friday as the Longhorns won, 3-2, over Celebration at Liberty High School.
“Technically we were not really great, but we certainly made up for it with our effort and determination,” Coach Scott Marlega said of his 7-1 Lady Longhorns. “We have a really young team and we’re still trying to figure out who are best 11 players are. But the thing that is really encouraging is that this team is just starting to gel and we have the potential to get better and better this year.”
Marlega also praised his opponent. “Coach (Rebecca) Camis has a good team and she had them ready to play tonight,” he said. “They gave us all we wanted.”
The Storm upset Harmony in last year’s final to claim their first OBC title, and jumped out to a 1-0 lead Friday, scoring in the first six minutes of the game. Anna Balba dribbled past two opponents and bury her eighth goal of the season by blasting a shot into the right hand corner of the net at the 34 minute mark.
A Harmony equalizing goal was waived off for offsides six minutes later, but Lily Glassburn tied it with a goal at the 24’ mark. The Longhorns went ahead for good five minutes later. A Longhorn shot from in front of the net was knocked away by Storm goalie Evelyn Juden but the rebound went right to the foot of Jadyn Frost who put it in the right hand corner of the net to a 2-1 lead.
Celebration had two excellent chances to tie the game in the early going of the second half. A Storm winger sent a pass directly in front of the goal. Ellie Armstrong took the pass from 25 yards out and had only the goalie in front but her shot sailed wide of mark. With 25 minutes left in the half, Balba found the ball at her foot in front of the net but her point blank shot was stuffed by goalie Karla Marrero.
Over the next 15 minutes, both teams had opportunities. But the back lines of both teams would either come up with key blocks or would clear the ball out of danger.
“That was a big key for us,” Marlega noted. “Our defense packed it in and when one ball did get through (Balba’s shot), our goalie came up with a great save.”
Harmony appeared to put the game away with five minutes to go when Alycia Hizer took a free kick from distance and watched as her shot sailed over Celebration defenders and then took a huge bounce over Juden’s out-stretched arms for a goal and a 3-1 advantage. But less than a minute later, the Storm answered with an eerily similar goal. After a Harmony foul, Oriana Moreno’s free kick from 30 yards out also sailed over Harmony’s back line, took a big bounce and went over Marrero’s head to cut the lead back to one goal.
Celebration furiously tried to mount some offense in the waning minutes but the Longhorn defense did not allow a scoring opportunity.
For the game, Harmony led on both shots on goal (10-7) and corner kicks (5-2).
“Congratulations to Harmony,” Rebecca Camis said. “Both teams played a good game, they essentially made one more big play that we did.”
The Storm, who fell to 7-2 with the loss, reached the finals of the week long tournament with a 14-0 victory over Osceola in Monday’s quarterfinals and a 3-1 win over Tohopekaliga in Wednesday’s semifinals. Harmony, whose lone loss this season was a 2-1 non-district setback to Palm Bay Bayside, reached the finals with a 14-0 win over Liberty in the first round and an 8-0 victory over Gateway in the semifinals.
