Photos by Heather Belcher
Championship Saturday for Class AA-A girls soccer has involved Charleston Catholic for the past seven seasons.
Make it eight.
Scoring two goals in the first 10 minutes of the match, the No. 1 seeded Irish knocked off No. 4 Oak Glen, 4-1 in Friday’s semifinal round.
“We did a really good job executing in the beginning. If we would have let them stick around, we would have been in big trouble,” Charleston Catholic head coach Amy Mullen said. “They are a good team. (Kami Ward) did a great job and their goalkeeper was great.”
Shannon Karr stunned Oak Glen with a goal less than 30 seconds into the contest. Claire Mullen then made it 2-0 in the ninth minute to seize the momentum for Catholic.
Ward then gave Mullen a scare with a goal to cut the deficit in half.
“The fact the we could execute at the very first of the match really helped. We let them back in, but thank goodness we calmed down and capitalized,” Mullen said. “That girl was good and she scared us. I have been here before and I have seen the one-girl pony and how they can carry you. We calmed down, played together and got in some nice goals.”
Claire Mullen’s second goal of the half gave the Irish a 3-1 halftime lead.
“We have been eliminated by Charleston Catholic three times. I loved the way we responded after the first early goal. We had a chance that we just didn’t finish,” Oak Glen head coach Ryan Wells said. “We were a little tight at the beginning, but we also didn’t hold back. It is tough to run with a team like them with their midfield and front line.”
Oak Glen was able to frustrate the high powered Irish offense in the second half holding them to just one goal from Karr. However, the Golden Bears could not find the range offensively to cut into the lead.
“The effort was tremendous tonight. We had our chances. When you are playing a team that is one touch faster and one touch better on the ball, you have to take advantage of free kicks and corners. This is a great senior group and they had fun together,” Wells said.
Charleston Catholic will look for its third straight championship today against Philip Barbour. The game will be played 45 minutes after the boys Class AA-A final which starts at 9:30 a.m.
