MIDDLETOWN >> The end came suddenly for Middletown on Wednesday night at Bill Foltmer Field, but that’s not to say the Mustangs didn’t delay that end as long as they could.
Chloe Colbert’s goal with 6:45 left in the second 10-minute overtime was the difference as No. 1 seed Sonoma Academy edged Middletown 3-2 in the semifinal round of the North Coast Section Division III girls’ soccer playoffs.
A double-overtime thriller to be sure, Middletown delayed Sonoma Academy’s victory celebration late in the second half of regulation when Rosie Emerson punched a shot past the Coyotes keeper to even the score at 2 with approximately 4:20 left. Sonoma Academy, the two-time defending section champion, kept the ball on Middletown’s half of the field for the better part of 30 minutes of the second half only to be denied time and time again by the Mustangs’ defense, including a couple of hard saves by keeper Lucy Schisler.
Both teams just missed in the first 10-minute overtime. A bid for the win by Sonoma Academy was plucked out of the air by Schisler, and with 5:50 to go, Middletown’s Kaleigh Alves, a four-year veteran for the Mustangs, nearly ended with a shot that went just wide.
In the end, it was Sonoma Academy’s four-year veteran and all-time scoring leader Colbert who won it with her second goal of the game and the 154th of her career, a line drive that Schisler never had a chance to stop.
“I couldn’t have asked anything more from them tonight,” Middletown coach Amy Emerson said. “After all that’s happened to us this season, after playing almost 100 minutes tonight, I’m not going to lose any sleep over this one. We played as hard as we could for as long as we could. I’m not sure they were expecting this tough of a battle from us.”
Sonoma Academy head coach Chris Ziemer said the Coyotes were expecting exactly that.
“I came up here last Saturday and scouted them (in a 6-0 opening-round win over Technology) and I’m glad I did,” Ziemer said of the Mustangs. “I saw the spirit in this group. They never quit. They didn’t quit tonight. I have nothing but respect for them.”
Ziemer and the Coyotes made the ultimate gesture earlier in the week of voluntarily giving up the homefield advantage for Wednesday’s game. Although they were supposed to host it on their new all-weather turf field, they decided to let Middletown, a community ravaged by the Valley Fire in September, play at home.
“We talked about things we could do for them and we thought this was the right thing to do,” Ziemer said. “I used to host soccer camps on Cobb Mountain, at Whispering Pines. I know this area.”
Sonoma Academy had a 2-0 lead less than 14 minutes into the first half but Middletown held tough after that and eventually closed the gap to 2-1 on a Emerson goal with 5:10 left in the first half.
“We jumped on them pretty good at the start,” Ziemer said. “If we could have gotten that third goal it might have been a different story , but to their credit they battled back to make it 2-1 at the half. They don’t give up.”
