#15 Knights Women’s Soccer Advances to Region 20 DII Finals After 1-0 OT Win vs Howard Community College

By Ben Wagner

Dundalk, Md. – The #15 CCBC Essex women's soccer team beat Howard Community College on Wednesday night in overtime by a final score of 1-0 to advance to the region finals on Saturday.

            The Knights came into their match Wednesday night on a five-game winning streak. The Knights were facing a Howard team who they have not seen since September 6^th, where they won by a final score of 2-0. The Knights looked to get their first win in the Region 20 tournament after having a first-round bye and being the number one overall seed in the tournament. Howard would enter the game as the four seed, hosting a quarterfinals matchup against Frederick last Saturday, defeating them soundly 6-0.

            At the start of the first whistle, everyone could see that this game was going to be a very intense and physical game. Both the Knights and the Dragons were playing very good soccer heading into the tournament and were looking to advance to the finals. The Knights were the first team to attack and have chances on goal, and they started early in the game. Kayla Willis had plenty of one on one opportunities with the Dragons defenders early on but was unable to finish.

            In the second part of the first half, the Knights continued to create chances on offense but the Dragons defense started to catch the Knights offsides. The Dragons offense started to come alive in late in the first half as well, giving Knights goal keeper Reagan Cantner some work with the Dragons putting quality shots on goal.

            The game went into halftime scoreless and it was still anyone's game to win. The Knights offense created ten shots in the first half and the Knights defense only let up a total of five shots to the Dragons.

            Both teams seemed more focused early on in the second half and were both determined to advance to the finals. The Knights continued their offensive success into the second half. They were landing chances left and right including a shot by Rebecca Verdi who hit the crossbar from twenty yards out. The Dragons defense seemed to get tired out in the second half but managed to keep the Knights off the score board. The Dragons created some chances for themselves but were unable to finish as well.

            At the end of the second half, the score was still 0-0 and the game was headed into golden goal overtime. When asked what he told the team before overtime, Head Coach Steve King said "I told them, for the sophomores who lost to Howard in the tournament last year, this was always going to be a revenge game. I told them we have to grind, we have to find a way and dig down. Everything was there for us to win the game and it was definitely our game to win."

            In overtime, the Knights were fired up from this talk from Coach King and were determined to put a ball in the net. In the 96^th minute of the game, the Knights were fouled right outside the top of the box and had one of their best chances of the game to put one in the net. Verdi took the free kick and put the ball in the top left corner of the goal and won the game for the Knights.

            The Knights offense had an incredible thirty-one shots throughout the game and the defense had only given up a total of eight shots in the entire game.

            When asked what was going on in her head before and after her game winner, Verdi said "before I took the shot, I was like I have to put this in and win the game for my team. When I saw the ball go in the net, I was relieved and was like thank god we won!"

            When asked how to use this game as momentum heading into Saturday, Coach King said "It's a final. Anytime anyone plays in a final you should be amped. I think since tonight was the kind of game it was tonight, our energy should definitely be there on Saturday. The College of Southern Maryland got a win as well earlier today, so we expect the same energy from them on Saturday as well." When asked the same question, Rebecca Verdi said "we need to just clean up the little mistakes that we had and push forward and play like it's our last game."

            The Knights will play the College of Southern Maryland in the Region 20 Finals on Saturday October 29^th at 12:00pm. The winner of this game will travel to Region 19 for the Northeast District Championship and a chance to advance to the NJCAA DII Women's Soccer Championships in Tucson, Arizona starting November 14^th.