BATH TWP.: Ninety feet separated Cloverleaf defender Brooke Wolfe from a game-winner with 10:40 to go in the second overtime on Monday in a Kent Division II district semifinal against Revere’s girls soccer team.
It might as well have been a layup.
The senior punched in a direct kick from 30 yards out on the left as she has done so many times before this season and the fourth-seeded Colts knocked out top-seeded Revere 3-2 in double overtime.
Their prize is a district final Thursday — Cloverleaf’s first in school history — against second-seeded Hathaway Brown (12-5-1).
“As soon as I hit it off my foot, I was like, ‘It’s going in.’ I already knew it,” Wolfe said. “There’s so much emotion. I may have put that shot in, but it was a team effort. If the defense doesn’t hold and Katelyn [Young] didn’t get hit in the face a couple times in goal, I would have never put that in.”
Therein is one of the big reasons the Colts (14-3-1) won. Young was incredible in goal, the senior coming up huge more often than not.
The scoring line says the Minutemen (12-3-1) put the ball in the back of the net twice, but Young stopped 21 shots to keep Cloverleaf, which shot only five times on frame, in the game.
She stopped two shots from point-blank range and single-handedly kept the Colts afloat for most of the evening.
“That keeper was fantastic,” Revere coach Dave Howson said. “I said that at the end of regulation. Whatever happens, ‘You’ve been fantastic.’ She kept them in the game and she really did.”
Cloverleaf took an early lead when reigning Portage Trail Conference Player of the Year Alli Gray scored just before halftime.
The goal held up until Audrey Harding took a pass from Claire Brokloff and beat Young near the 20-minute mark.
Gray pushed the Colts back ahead with 14:25 remaining and it looked like that might be the way it would finish, but Brokloff scored from the goal mouth on a perfect corner on the right from Alexa Langenfeld with 4:51 remaining to set up the extra session.
After that Wolfe took center stage at Joseph F. Pappano Stadium to send the Colts forward.
The game was nip-and-tuck all evening, but the fact Cloverleaf never trailed played to its advantage. The Minutemen, who played with the ball in their offensive third most of the night, were almost always playing catch-up.
“We had a game plan coming in,” Colts coach Guillermo Porras said. “We wanted to get the first goal. We wanted to take them deep. We wanted to maintain our shape, but you saw how good they were. When we scored our second one they did the same thing. That’s a very good team.”
Already farther than it has ever been, now Cloverleaf will see where it can go against a Hathaway Brown team that won the district a year ago.
Playing with house money, the Colts are ready.
“We just need to go out and play our game,” Porras said. “We have to maintain our shape and stay composed. We just need to really play like we know how.”