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Breaking New Ground: Albemarle girls soccer rallies to win program’s first region title

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When you roll through the regular season unbeaten with shutout after shutout, you just don’t go down by two goals very often. Albemarle girls soccer’s 2017 edition never did, in fact.

 

Until Friday night.

 

The Patriots didn’t panic when thrown into that situation Friday night on the road in the Region 5A North championship game. Mountain View jumped on Albemarle, scoring twice in the first 10 minutes out of the gate.

 

“It’s fun when you see the end result, but in the moment it’s hard,” said Albemarle coach Amy Sherrill.

 

After a quick systems check to make sure they weren’t rattled, Albemarle’s machine went back to work and within 11 minutes had equalized with back-to-back goals. They then managed to get the game into overtime where a Brooke Bauman game-winner lifted Albemarle (21-0) past Mountain View for a 3-2 victory and the program’s first region championship since it was founded in 1987.

 

Bauman, who spends most of her time for the Patriots setting the table for other players — she’s notched 21 assists on the year — created her own chance in overtime and came up with a big-time goal.

 

“She definitely deserves that,” Sherrill said. “She set herself up past the defender and then ripped it from 20 or 25 yards out easily.”

 

The goal came with 32 seconds left in the first overtime period, so the Albemarle defense then had to hold up another five minutes and 32 seconds, and they were up to the task. Keeper Aiyanah Tyler-Cooper finished with five saves on the night.

 

Of course, Bauman’s goal wouldn’t have even been possible if not for the back-to-back goals in the 19th and 21st minutes where Hannah Eiden finished off a Megan Schantz feed for the first goal and Fizzy Gonzalez followed it with the equalizer.

 

“Two minutes later we got our second one, that’s four goals in the first 20 minutes,” Sheriil said. “We were like is this going to keep going like this, this is going to be crazy.”

 

The only experience Albemarle really had to draw on this year for being in the hole also came against Mountain View. In an early season clash, the Wildcats led Albemarle 1-0 before Albemarle rallied to snag a 2-1 victory. The only other team to score twice against the Patriots is Western in the squads’ second meeting, so facing that kind of adversity was relatively new as well.

 

But Albemarle survived and earned a chance to face the Region 5A South runner-up, Maury, in the Group 5A state semifinals Friday at Westfield High. The winner advances to Saturday’s state championship game.

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