East Ridge took advantage of some fortunate bounces to knock off top-seeded White Bear Lake 3-2 in the Class 3A, Section 4 girls soccer final at White Bear Lake High School on Tuesday night.
Jada Francis deflected a bouncing ball past Bears goalkeeper Chloe Tocko with just over a minute remaining in the match for the game-winning goal and a berth in the state tournament.
“I didn’t know if it was going in fully,” Francis said. “I just ran after [it]. I saw [Tocko] dive and it kind of slipped off her fingers. I just saw it slowly roll in.”
The third-seeded Raptors scored first at the 22-minute mark on their first fortunate bounce of the game. Reese Tovar took a shot from 20 yards out that sneaked between the legs of Tocko. The Bears (14-1-2) tied the score at 1-1 moments later when Becca Smith beat Raptors goalkeeper Isabel Oferosky with a low shot that caromed off the inside of the post.
The Raptors (14-1-2) took a 2-1 lead with 8:05 left in the first half on a goal by Kya Crowley and the Bears rallied to again tie the score with 7:11 remaining on a penalty kick by Abby O’Brien.
“Resilience. That’s about it,” Raptors coach Latcho Kostadinov said. “There was five minutes to play. We could go to overtime, but no, we wanted to play. That’s what the girls did.”
For the players, they beat one of four or five teams in the section that could contend for the state title.
“Everyone of [us] have worked incredibly hard and every single one deserves it. No matter what anyone else says. We deserve this,” Oferosky said.
