Tuesday afternoon at Thomas Field on the North Cross campus, it was fashionable to be late.
First, the Hampton Roads Academy Navigators rolled into town only five minutes before the scheduled 4:30 start, necessitating a late start to the VIS Division-II girls soccer state quarterfinal.
But, it was the North Cross girls who made the best of the tardiness, scoring a pair of late goals to propel the Raiders to the hard-fought 2-1 win, sending North Cross to Friday’s state semifinal at Ukrop Park in Richmond.
“Better late than never,” North Cross head coach James Brown agreed after the late Raider push. “I was getting a little worried. I probably have a couple more grey hairs right now.”
The late start seemed to have North Cross a little sluggish in the opening half. Especially, coming on the heels of Saturday’s Blue Ridge Conference win over Eastern Mennonite.
“We just didn’t have the intensity in the beginning,” Brown noted. “It may have been the wait. We were having our ups and downs, but we kept battling.”
Hampton Roads had scored the game’s only goal in the first half on a sharp shot by Navigator senior Catie Slater.
“She is a fantastic player,” Brown said of the Hampton Roads captain.
The 1-0 lead was looking good heading into the final twenty minutes of the game before Hampton Roads appeared to get exhausted as North Cross kept putting on the offensive pressure.
Still, the Raiders looked snake bit when a penalty kick sailed over the cross bar in the 66th minute, and junior Lissa Smith’s PK less than three minutes later had the same result, keeping the Navigators up by one.
But, the Raiders’ pressure in the offensive zone finally paid off in the 71st minute when junior Sarah Maurer came out of a scrum in front of the Hampton Roads goal and pushed a shot into the twine past the diving Navigator minder.
Maurer finished off the comeback with two minutes left when she blasted a penalty kick from 30 yards out perfectly into the top of the Navigator goal.
“Sarah put it exactly where she needed to,” Brown said of the game-winner. “We were pressing them hard. I think they (HR) got tired at the end.”
Bill Turner
