Laconia, n.h.
Stevens High junior Sydney Miller is carving out a name for herself as kind of a folk hero throughout the NHIAA Division III girls soccer tournament, and she showed it again in the Cardinals’ 2-1 semifinal win over Campbell on Tuesday at Laconia High School’s Sachem Stadium.
In last week’s quarterfinal win over Trinity, Miller curled in the game’s only goal, which advanced the Cards to Tuesday.
The Trinity goal wasn’t a lucky shot, but the one she got against the Cougars, which turned out to be the game-winner, certainly was.
With Stevens leading 1-0, Miller got the call to take a penalty shot with 3:53 to go in the first half. Miller, who kicks with her left foot, hooked a shot over the leap of Campbell goalkeeper Mackenzie Wagner.
A brilliant shot?
“No. I was aiming low and to the corner,” Miller admitted afterward.
The win now sends the Cardinals to a place they’ve been five times previously — the championship round. It has not been a particularly happy place, with Stevens having lost four of those appearances. Only the 1988 team, playing in the rain at Concord’s Memorial Stadium, was a champion, with a 1-0 win over Lebanon.
The Cardinals have lost in the championship game three times to Souhegan and once to Winnacunnet. The late Gene Grumman, who started the girls soccer program at Stevens, was the coach of all those teams.
On Sunday, back in Laconia, the Cards will try to grab the championship 30 years after the first one. Game time is 4 p.m.
“And we’re going to win it,” senior Brooke Bonneau said.
Bonneau’s confidence is built on the Stevens defense, not an attack that has scored 86 goals this season.
“We always play good defense,” Bonneau said.
Bonneau would get no argument from her coaches.
“The momentum really switched when Campbell cut the lead to 2-1 with a whole lot of time (26:40) to play,” Stevens coach Tom Belaire said.
Added Stevens assistant coach Steve McManus: “Their transition game started clicking with their through passes.”
“And I think we were getting tired,” Belaire finished.
Fortunately, Stevens keeper Kaitlyn Chambers, who has been a rock in goal all season, made big stops, and she had big-time help from backs Alexis Aiken, Leanne McCarthy and Zhana Rice.
“I’m glad the game didn’t go on for another five minutes,” Belaire said. “We were playing an awful good team.”
The third-seeded Cougars (12-2-2) won seven straight games before Tuesday, and they ended a campaign that included nine shutouts and only nine goals allowed during the regular season. Stevens, the second seed, will take a 15-3-0 record into the title match.
The game’s first 30 minutes were kind of zany in that both teams were content to kick the ball around the midfield area, trying to avoid a mistake. There were only two shots on goal until a mini-rush down the right side with less than 10 minutes to go resulted in a floating cross from Bonneau to Jenna Pond. Pond’s shot was money — upper corner to the keeper’s right to put Stevens up, 1-0.
Six minutes later, Miller, who took a nasty blow to the face before taking the penalty kick, sent in what would be the deciding goal.
While that ended the Stevens scoring, the game was far from over as the Cougars came out for the second half energized and set the Cardinals back into a defensive mode.
It started to get sticky with 26 minutes to play, when the Cougars cut Stevens’ lead in half on an Autumn Thompson goal following a Paige Wagner cross.
If Campbell had one moment in the game it would have liked to have back, it would have been with 19:30 to play. A Campbell rush resulted in a Madison Greenhaigh rocket that slammed off the post on Chambers’ right, with the rebound going to the Cougars’ Karleigh Shultz, who had a lot of empty net to shoot at but her attempt went over the bar.
Campbell finished with an 8-7 edge in shots on goal and 5-3 in corners.