By: Siri Kanter ’20
The Staples girls’ varsity soccer team was defeated 1-0 by the St. Joseph Cadets in the FCIAC championship final held on Friday, Nov. 3 at Fairfield Ludlowe High School.
Maddie Fried scored the Cadets’ only goal with 1:11 minutes left in the first half. Fried struck the ball 30 yards away from the goal, where it settled in the top left corner. Fried was later named the game’s MVP.
Staples’ fans felt jubilation and then heartache at the game’s end. With five seconds left in the second half, the Wreckers had a corner kick. Julia Lombardo ’20 kicked it into play. The Superfans and Staples players began celebrating after the the ball found the net just as time expired. The Wreckers thought that the game had become a tie and that a first overtime would soon begin.
In the midst of this celebration, however, the referee ruled that the ball had hit the crossbar over the goal, an area which is deemed out of bounds, before finding its way into the Cadet’s goal. Thus, what would have been the game-tying goal was refuted.
“There was a lot of pressure by them [The Wreckers] at the end, and I just tried to follow the ball as best I could because I didn’t want to let up that final goal,” Veronica O’Rourke, St. Joe’s goalie, said.
By the end of the game, Staples goalie Anna Sivinski ’18 had a total of 12 saves while O’Rourke had a total of 11.
The Cadets succeeded in reclaiming the FCIAC championship they last secured in 2013. The Wreckers were hoping to emulate a victory they hadn’t achieved since 1995; they had not contended in the FCIAC championship since 2013.
The Wreckers, who had a regular season record of 12-3-1, were ranked number one in the league. The Cadets, who had a regular season record of 11-1-4 were ranked number two in the league before the game.
Arianna Gerig ’20, who assisted Ashley Wright’s ’19 winning goal in the Wreckers’ Wednesday game against Ridgefield that brought the team to the FCIAC championship, believes that the team put all their effort into this game, and there was not much else the girls could have done. “The team dynamic was really positive. Everyone was giving 110 percent and no one stopped until the whistle,” Gerig said. “This team has more heart than anything and will never stop fighting.”
The Wrecker’s coach, Barry Beattie, agrees with Gerig that the team put up a strong fight. “They worked hard,” Beattie said. “I don’t think we were the worse team, but if you don’t score, you don’t win. They [St. Joes] scored a great goal and it was worthy of winning any final.”