2011 State Soccer Tournament Girls 1A Final; Benilde-St. Margaret’s vs The Blake School

Mall of America Field (Metrodome)

Girls 1A Final

The Blake School  1-0  Benilde-St. Margaret’s

The girls 1A final had the look of a classic matchup as the number one and two seeded teams, The Blake School Bears (21-1-0 – #2 seed) met the Benilde-St. Margaret’s Red Knights (18-1-3 – #1 seed). Benilde was coming off a convincing 3-0 semifinal win over #4 seeded Totino-Grace in the semifinals while The Blake school had disposed of their semifinal opponent, the #3 seeded Rochester Lourdes by a score of 2-0. Both teams knew how to score, particularly the Red Knights as they had tallied 93 goals in the regular season and sectionals.

However, both teams came out cautious as teams battled for possession and good chances were hard to come by. The best chance of the first 15 minutes went to junior forward Hannah Randolph for Blake when she broke through the Red Knights defense. But the ball rolled just out of her reach and Benilde-St. Margaret’s goalkeeper Mikayla Coulombe raced out and smothered the ball before Randolph could get to it.

Blake's #14 Lauren Kelly goes up against BSM's Dana Buckhorn. Photos by Jeremy Olson – www.digitalgopher.net

With just 20 seconds left in the first half The Blake School played the ball to the right side of the penalty box after Benilde gotten themselves in hot water for losing the ball in their own defensive third. The ball was crossed through the box from Randolph with two Blake players wide open on the left of goal. Grace Boatman was closest and latched onto the ball, settling with her right foot and shooting with her left. She hit the ball low to the opposite post where it slid in just under Coulombe and caromed into the goal off the right post putting the Bears up 1-0.

At the end of the half it was BSM who had the more shots, 6-3 but the Blake School had the lead 1-0.

Nine minutes into the second half the Bears sophomore Lydia Sutton and junior midfielder Nicole Kozlak played a short corner that was played back to Sutton after The Blake School had been awarded their 3rd corner kick of the game. Sutton dribbled through traffic, rounded the corner on her defender and headed towards goal from a sharp angle. She fired at Coulombe but the senior was able to parry away the shot. The ball caromed around several people before being chipped at the goal. The ball looked goal bound but was headed away to save the Red Knights from going down two goals.

Shortly after Coulmbe was forced to smother a breakaway from The Blake School’s Randolph.

In the 67th minute The Blake school was on the attack again as momentum seemed to be shifting in their favor. Senior midfielder Meghan Bauer played a diagonal ball through traffic to the near post where she found Anne Slusser. The sophomore hit the ball first touch from close range but her shot went just wide of the far post.

Benilde-St. Magaret’s had one last chance to draw the game even when they won only there 2nd corner kick of the game for the Red Knights with 1:30 left on the clock. The ball was played back out and in a scramble the Red Knights drove a hard shot to right inside post. But diminutive Bears midfielder Nicole Kozlak had posted herself on the goal line and was able to block the shot with her body and clear the rebound helping to earn the rights to the 2011 1A girls state title.
Grace Boatman

“I feel amazing right now,” said goal scorer Boatman. “I’m just really proud of our team. Coach told us at half that we were playing great but that we had to play for another 40 minutes and couldn’t back down.”

“Our goal, and it has been all year, is to play high pressure defense,” said Bears head coach Paul Menge. “I think we were just feeling things out early on. As we continued to get to the ball first I think our confidence grew and always talk about counterattacking and switching the ball up and I think we did that better and better as the game wore on. I think we played better in the second half than the first. But they [BSM] are a very skilled team and so we knew we had to get to the ball first every team. They did that and I couldn’t be more proud of them.”