ROHNERT PARK — Amid the smiles and tears following a championship game lost on Saturday at Rancho Cotate High School, there was also the maximum effort the Middletown Mustangs left on the field in a 5-2 loss to the Sonoma Academy Coyotes in the finals of the North Coast Section Division III girls” soccer playoffs.
Middletown (20-3), the six-time defending North Central League I champion and No. 2 playoff seed, simply couldn”t answer Sonoma Academy”s speed or firepower in a rematch of the 2012 title game won 2-0 by Middletown.
“They have some very skilled forwards and they have speed and we couldn”t match up with that,” Middletown coach Louise Owens said. “They did a great job of passing through our back line.”
Sonoma Academy”s Savannah Stoughton outscored Middletown all by herself, striking for a goal in the first half as the Coyotes built a 2-1 halftime lead and putting Middletown away once and for all with her third and final goal, that coming with just under 10 minutes remaining in the game to make it 5-2.
“We thought we might need to outscore them because they have Hannah Diaz and we know what she”s capable of doing,” Sonoma Academy coach Chris Ziemer said of Middletown”s star senior midfielder. “She (Stoughton) led our team in scoring last year and she”s our leader in assists this year.”
Both teams made mistakes in front of their own goal but it was the No. 1-seeded Coyotes (21-1) who took the most advantage. After Diaz scored for Middletown with 21:10 left to play to make it a 3-2 game, the Coyotes unleashed a withering barrage of shots on the Mustangs, testing their defense time and time again. While Middletown was able to rebuff most of those attacks, it couldn”t stop all of them.
When the Mustangs failed to clear a ball with 12:14 remaining, Sonoma Academy”s Chloe Colbert knocked it past Middletown keeper Jesse Flynn to make it 4-2. Less than three minutes later Stoughton knocked in her final goal, a long-range shot, to give the Coyotes a comfortable three-goal cushion.
“We love to attack,” Ziemer said. “We know Middletown is a good team and we have much respect for what they”ve done, but we always have more confidence in our own ability.”
Middletown had a couple of prime scoring opportunities in the game”s first 10 minutes but couldn”t find the net, including once on a breakaway. Stoughton and the Coyotes finally broke the ice at 30:01 remaining in the first half, the Sonoma Academy junior going one-on-one with Flynn and knocking a shot past her.
To Flynn”s credit, she stopped most of Sonoma Academy”s attacks, including a couple of other one-on-ones, but the pressure never stopped.
“Jessie played a great game,” Owens said. “She kept us in the game. It could have easily been a lot worse.”
Middletown tied the game at 1-all at the 23:36 mark of the first half, Caitlin Lemoine going one-on-one with the Sonoma Academy keeper and launching a bullet of a shot that went over the keeper”s head and hard into the back of the net.
Sonoma Academy went ahead to stay with 17:45 left in the half, Lucy Donaldson angling a shot past Flynn and into the corner of the net.
With two minutes remaining in the first half, the Coyotes had multiple scoring opportunities as they attempted to add to their lead. Each time Flynn was there to save the day and keep the game close.
The Coyotes spent most of the second half on Middletown”s half of the field and moved out to a 3-1 lead on Stoughton”s second goal of the game. Moments earlier Middletown had a prime scoring opportunity but Sonoma Academy”s keeper came far out of the net to smother a loose ball, outracing a Middletown player to it. Had the Middletown player arrived a couple of seconds earlier it would have been a 2-2 game.
While the Mustangs were gunning to become the first Lake County sports team to repeat as section champions since the early 1990s, Owens said her players have nothing to regret about their performance in 2013.
“There were people who didn”t expect us to make it back here,” Owens said. “We lost seven starters to graduation. This is almost a completely different team. I couldn”t be any prouder of these girls.”
Owens had to choke back tears when asked about the seven seniors, many of them starters, who played their final high school game on Saturday.
She had this to say about them:
Hannah Diaz — “Just a great person and a great leader. She knows how to rally people.”
Karina Vargas — “She had to learn a new position this year and sweeper isn”t an easy one to learn. It takes some people two or three years to learn it and she did it in one.”
Ashley Hart — “Her last name says it all.”
Cheyenne Emerson — “Probably our most improved player. She started for us in the championship game. She started because she earned it.”
Deardra Mc-Gough-Pendergast — “She made a huge improvement from last year. She is one very determined girl.”
Jessie Flynn — “She”s a beast. She doesn”t have the physique of a keeper, but she”s very decisive. She”s going to challenge everything.”
Paloma Colacion — “One of the smartest players I”ve ever coached … very soccer smart with great touch on the ball. One of the only seniors who took the younger players aside to work with them. She understood the concept that you”re only as strong as your weakest link.
“God, I”m going to miss them,” Owens said of the seniors.
