For the first time in its history, Pontiac Notre Dame Prep is the champion of the Catholic League’s A-B divisions following a win over Warren Regina in penalty kicks Saturday.
The Fighting Irish prevailed 4-2 in the shootout after eighty minutes of regulation was not enough to produce a goal and overtime proved to be equally unsuccessful.
In the penalty kicks that followed, Notre Dame Prep quickly took control with freshman reserve goalkeeper Morgan Verheyen making two saves after entering the game cold off of the bench following overtime.
Sophomore Celia Gaynor’s goal on the Fighting Irish’s fourth penalty kick sealed up the win.
“To be honest, we really did not want anything to do with penalty kicks,” Fighting Irish coach Jim Stachura said. “We practiced them quite a bit and I have three goalkeepers I’m okay with using in kicks. Today we decided to make a change and go with a freshman who is getting better. We had talked about making a change in goal just to make things difficult and different, maybe to give them an enthusiasm jump. It was great to see her make two saves.”
Olivia Mears, Payton Williams and Stephanie Maniaci also tallied goals in the shootout for Notre Dame Prep (13-1-3). Verheyen stopped the first and third shots she faced, guessing correctly and diving to the side of the Regina shot on both occasions.
The Saddlelites (10-3-5) were out-chanced and out-shot throughout the 100 minutes of gameplay, but their defense held strong and prevented the Irish from putting the game away.
“Ultimately, what has happened, happened. And there are multiple ways that we could interpret the game,” Regina coach Ryan Elchuk said. “The way that we interpret them will determine how the rest of the year goes. We can look at it and say it’s unfair because penalty kicks are a hard way to go down, or we can accept responsibility for the fact that we didn’t have a great day and lots of things that were happening aren’t characteristic of who we are.”
The 80 minutes of regulation play were largely devoid of scoring chances, as the teams spent the bulk of the time in the middle third of the field. The overtimes produced more of the same with just one shot on goal total.
Early in the game, Gaynor had the two most threatening scoring chances, both in the first half. Twelve minutes into the game, she fired a close-range shot that Regina goalkeeper Cecelia Muskovac knocked down right at the point of contact.
Later in the half, Gaynor was on the receiving end of a pass near the goal and let rip a mid-air one-timed kick that sailed a couple feet wide of the post, eliciting a momentary, false celebration from the Irish bench.
“We struggled a little bit on the technical side of the game and we didn’t expect that today,” Stachura said. “It grinds you out. We had a battle and a lot of 50-50 plays. I think we had the ball a little more than they did and we outshot them, but it was a midfield battle.”
Regina had reached the final by knocking off the top seed and defending A-B champion, Birmingham Marian, in the semifinals on Wednesday. Notre Dame Prep’s lone loss this season came to Marian, which had also beaten the Irish each of the past two seasons in the CHSL final.
“Two years ago we lost in penalty kicks to Marian. Last year, it was one mistake (defensively) when we had had a lot of chances. That’s soccer,” Stachura said. “Today was about it being our last game in the Catholic League for a while and we made it a priority … We’re fortunate to come out of this ahead in penalty kicks.”
The Irish and Saddlelites will meet again soon, as the teams will open play in the district playoffs against each other in less than two weeks.
Dan Fenner – MiPrepZone.com – May 21, 2016