Freshman midfielder Adalaide Svoboda positioned herself in front of a waterlogged soccer ball. She took one final look back at her coach and teammates standing in anticipation behind her on the Cicero-North Syracuse sideline and then sent the ball howling 35 yards just out of reach of the outstretched Oceanside goalkeeper.
"Honestly, it shows a maturity to be able to step up in overtime of a state semifinal, and to take that responsibility and to do well," C-NS coach Jeremy Lenchert said.
That goal off a free kick about a minute and 15 seconds into double overtime of a scoreless match gave the Northstars a 1-0 victory over their Section VIII foe and a trip to Sunday's state final for the first time since 2007.
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Saturday's game did not start as planned, however.
The Class AAA semifinal match, which was scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. on the Dryden High School turf field, was delayed more than two hours because of lightning.
"You just tell them that, 'You gotta find a way to overcome it,'" Lenchert said. "Just try to maintain your focus because they (soccer officials) kept telling us we're gonna go back out. There were a couple of times we thought we were going back on. That 30 minutes started over, but every time it looked like it was close to being time to go back out there, we just had to refocus. They did a nice job today."
Even though the lightning eventually stopped, the torrential downpour did not. Lenchert credited his goalie and defence with overcoming the poor conditions to hold Oceanside scoreless.
"They played great ... all of our defenders, both of our keepers, played well," he said. "Kara Dorrance had an amazing save in the second half that just kept us in that game."
So with Saturday's thrilling victory, the Nortstars are in the finals for the first time since Lenchert brought his team to the Class AA finals in 2007. The team could win its first state title in program history, but the veteran coach doesn't want his team thinking about that.
"I gotta be honest with you, I'm gonna have to essentially say the same thing that we tell our players to do," he said. "We don't focus on the result. We focus on the things we need to do to get the result. Right now, my head is on what we need to do to be successful tomorrow and and that's it." The Northstars' last test is Section XI's Commack in the state championship match at 3 p.m. Sunday at Homer High School.
