UPPER LAKE — Jayme Zimmerschied’s penalty kick eight minutes into a 10-minute, sudden-death overtime period has the undefeated Upper Lake Cougars returning to the North Coast Section Division 3 championship game following a 3-2 victory over the Ferndale Wildcats on Wednesday night in Upper Lake.
Top-seeded Upper Lake (23-0-2) can close out a near-perfect season with a win Friday at home beginning at 7 p.m. against No. 2 seed St. Bernard (6-5-3) of Eureka, the team that beat the Cougars 5-2 a year ago in the Division 3 finals at Upper Lake. St. Bernard edged Mendocino 2-1 in Wednesday’s other semifinal.
“I hope so,” Upper Lake head coach Daniella Santana said of the possibility of avenging last year’s loss to the Crusaders, who beat a Cougars team that was minus its top player in Karlee Zimmerschied, who missed the game because of an injury.
Beating the fourth-seeded Wildcats (4-9-3) took all the Cougars could muster.
“Their record might not look like much, but that’s because they play all those large schools up there (in the Humboldt-Del Norte League),” Santana said of the Wildcats, who split their two league meetings with St. Bernard this season, winning 1-0 and losing 2-1.
Santana said she knew the Cougars were in for a real battle once the second half started with the score deadlocked at 0-0.
“We’re not a first half team, but when we still couldn’t get going in the second half, that’s when I knew they were for real,” Santana said of the Wildcats.
Ferndale scored two minutes into the first half for a 1-0 lead. Upper Lake pulled even at the 19-minute mark when Vanessa Lopez-Becerra scored with an assist from Kat Lopez-Geary. The Wildcats pushed back in front on a penalty kick at the 24-minute mark but the Cougars countered five minutes later on a Nya Marcks goal with an assist from Lopez-Geary.
The two teams battled it out for most of the sudden-death overtime period until Ferndale was called for a handball in the box. Zimmerschied’s penalty kick went over the keeper’s head and grazed the top corner of the frame before settling into the net.
“I thought about letting Maddy (Young) take the shot, but Jayme has been taking our penalty kicks all season, so I let her take it,” Santana said.
“Half of our crowd didn’t know if the game was over,” Santana said.
However, it became readily apparent when the players on Upper Lake’s bench stormed the field and keeper Kali Minnis raced from her end of the field to mob Zimmerschied.
“Kali made some amazing saves,” Santana said.
Santana said the play of the Rhodes sisters — Tristin and Ashlyn — and Marcks stood out as did that of Trinity Blancas, who came off the bench and ended up playing most of the game on defense and in the midfield.
“Nya had a great game,” Santana said.
