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Bobcats lose state tournament title in overtime to Rams
For as long as it took to celebrate a goal, the Battlefield girls’ soccer team was on top of the world.
Or at least the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Battlefield vs. Robinson
The Bobcats took a 1-0 lead in the second half of the Group AAA state tournament Saturday in Chantilly against the heavily favored, continuously aggressive Robinson Rams.
Battlefield's lead was clinched when midfielder Aly Shaughnessy raced into Robinson territory and connected with senior forward Jessica Jewell.
Jewell drew out goalie Katherine Yount to the top of the box and booted the ball past her with 14:21 to go in regulation.
Screams and shouts from the Battlefield players collided with a rush of bodies toward Jewell on Robinson’s side of the field. The Bobcats had broken a scoreless tie with what could have been the game-winning goal.
Oh, how moments of glory can quickly flee.
Twenty-three seconds later, Robinson struck back before the public address announcer had even finished giving the statistics about Jewell’s goal.
Robinson's LeighAnne Baxter found fellow forward Stephanie Johnson on a cross kick that brought her one-on-one with Battlefield goalie Kristen Norkus. Her shot chipped the iron bar to Norkus' left and in a painfully slow-motion play for the Battlefield sidelines, rolled back to the right and over the white line.
Norkus contested the goal, saying one of the Robinson players had fouled a Battlefield defender, but it was to no avail.
Neither team had scored for one hour, five minutes and 38 seconds before Jewell’s goal.
In a period of 23 seconds, the game was knotted at 1-1 and stayed that way until the last whistle of regulation blew. Robinson carried that momentum into overtime, out-shooting Battlefield 3-0 and winning 2-1.
“That was a little frustrating to see it go just like that,” said Battlefield coach Kevin Hilton about Robinson’s regulation goal. “I think the girls settled down after that, and we played through it.”
He questioned whether Robinson had in fact fouled one of his players on the move but said that was beside the point. Battlefield had made an error that had set that up the Rams’ attack in the first place.
“We tried to make too short of a pass. [We] probably should have knocked it at that point. So they were able to go quickly counter on us,” Hilton said.
Battlefield pressed hard in the waning minutes of the second half. Defender Katie Ostravecky launched a shot from the red line between midfield and the goalie’s box with 4:23 remaining on the clock.
She connected accurately, but her kick was not precise, drifting just over the top iron underneath the football uprights.
The first period of overtime produced one unsuccessful shot by both Robinson and Battlefield. In the second overtime, the Rams dominated the Bobcats with three shots to none.
One of those came on a fast break from Kristin Smith when she found Baxter hanging out in the goal box. Norkus dove to defend Baxter’s low shot but came up empty at the 88:11 mark of what became a 90- minute contest.
Battlefield never seriously contested the Rams offensively after that.
“They did a great job defending, Robinson did,” Hilton said. “They made it very difficult for Sahar [Aflaki] and Jessye [Jewell] out there. They’re just good players. They’re fast.”
Hilton had scouted the competition after once-beaten Robinson earned a spot in the finals.
“We knew that Robinson was going to come out real high-pressure on us,” explained Hilton.
Battlefield vs. Cox
He had seen one day earlier how the Rams handled Woodbridge, the team that had previously beaten Battlefield in the regional championship.
On Friday, the same day that Robinson beat Woodbridge, the Bobcats’ girls soccer team became the first ever team from Battlefield to clinch a berth in the state finals of a sport as an entire squad. They managed that by beating 2007 state runner-up Cox High, 2-1.
Jewell (26 season goals) had evened the score in the first half while the ever-dangerous Aflaki (23 goals) did her part with 10:53 left in the second half following an assist from defender Tara Rotante.
“I thought, you know, we were tired from the heat. I don’t think we were checking as much as we should have, getting the ball. They were stepping up front,” said Jewell. “But reality hit: It’s 1-1, no one wanted to go to overtime, so we did work [and] stepped up,”
Her teammate Shaughnessy added, “I think after we scored that goal, we wanted it so bad and we just stepped it up that last 10 minutes. We got every 50-50 [and] tried to get everything out of our half [of the field] in the second half up to the corners.”
Reflections
Hilton took a few moments after the state final to reflect on the season as a whole, as well as the gaps that will be created on the team; seniors Jewell, Kristen Norkus, Pamela Norkus, Caitlin Maat and Kaitlin Brown graduated from Battlefield on June 6.
“It was awesome,” said the coach. “We’re going to miss those seniors. They’re going to be a big loss next year but we’ve got a lot of youth [returning], as well.”
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