HART — After nearly 80 minutes of fierce, competitive soccer in Wednesday's district semifinal, Hart's last-minute penalty kick enabled it to escape Montague 5-4 in a game neither team was ever able to fully control.
Rilynn Porter of Hart scored the winning goal, her second penalty kick in the final five minutes of the game, after the Wildcats were whistled for a foul in the box with 14 seconds to play while battling to keep Hart speedster Natalie Rosema from getting to the net. It was the third time Hart was awarded a PK in the game due to a foul in the box; keeper Sara Zorrilla made a dramatic save of an attempt in the first half.
"I don't know that I've ever coached a game where there's been three PKs for the same team in any individual game," Montague coach Chris Aebig said.
It was an anticlimactic ending to a dramatic game that featured wild momentum swings and intense effort by each side, similar to a one-goal win by Hart in the teams' regular season matchup.
Montague seized the early lead when Ellee Smith retrieved a wayward pass and made a nifty move to score, and Marguerite O'Connell added a rebound goal with 13:18 to go before halftime to put the Wildcats in strong position, up 2-0. Hart got on the board a couple minutes later to keep the game close.
In the second half, Hart turned up the heat on offense, creating chance after chance. The Pirates tied the score with 29 minutes to go on a Rosema rebound shot and went ahead with 20:30 left on a corner kick.
Amidst the whiplash of the two teams' scoring, Zorrilla made several remarkable saves to keep the Wildcats in it as Hart continued to push. One of three foreign exchange students from Spain on the team (Carolina Gava-Alvarez and Colette Rohrig-Moreau were the others), Zorrilla said she hadn't played soccer prior to coming to Montague, but she looked the part of a veteran all season.
"I got the chance to improve and learn how to be a goalie, because I didn't try soccer before," Zorrilla said. "I had a lot of fun with my team, and I think it's a very strong team."
Senior Elle Moran said the defensive unit worked hard to try to counter Hart's attacks in the second half.
"We definitely had to adjust to their setup, their speed, and a lot of their technical skills," Moran said. "I think we realized in the second half that we needed to communicate and stay pressed back a little bit more."
Montague's Hallie VanTuyl stays close to Hart's Zoily Sarabia during Wednesday's game.
Montague wasn't done, and would fire in two tying goals in the second half to keep alive hopes of overtime. Ava Crow deposited a free kick from just outside the box directly into the net to tie it 3-3 with 16:33 to go, and less than a minute after the first of Porter's two goals via penalty kick, Zaniya Meza fired a shot that skittered under the Hart keeper and in to tie it again with 3:57 to go.
Fellow senior Lilly Rice didn't find the net herself in her final game, but noted the team philosophy of getting shots off was embodied in Crow's and Meza's scores, neither of which were rockets but were well-placed and found their way to where they needed to go.
"That's one of our big things, is 'shoot all day,'" Rice said. "You're going to miss every shot you don't take, so that's definitely something we've worked on this season."
The relentless effort displayed in scoring two second-half equalizers underscored the resilience that Aebig has spoken of before regarding his Wildcats.
"It's a tough one to take, but again, this is just a mere game," Aebig said. "At the end of the day, the people that these guys are are so much more important than the result of any game.
"I just told the team down there, life is about the journey, not the outcome, and we will definitely remember that we have one of the most special teams that I've ever been a part of right here on this field."
