Bears win thriller 4-3 over 15-time state champions
By Official Florida FC
Florida’s greatest girls soccer program will have to wait another year to add another trophy to its ledger.
St. Thomas Aquinas head coach Bryan Hantak said he wanted to see St. Johns Bartram Trail when the season began. He got his wish in the FHSAA Class 6A final on Saturday night in Auburndale.
“Honestly, if you are going to have a back-and-forth, the state final is awesome,” Hantak said. “Both teams are equally matched and the emotions are there. You know it just builds the pressure and the tension. It shapes us. I think it really did. I think both teams played extremely well. We got some good goals. They got some good goals. I would have paid to see this game.”
Aquinas led twice.
It wasn’t enough.
Bartram Trail senior Ali Fletcher headed a corner kick home with 19 seconds remaining in double overtime to lift the Bears to a fourth title in six years.
| Will Brown, Official Florida FC
Bartram’s 4-3 win over the 15-time state champions was its grittiest performance during its dynastic run.
Bartram Trail (18-1-4) won its other three titles by an aggregate score of 12-0. They often scored early goals and poured on the pressure until their opponents could not deny them.
Saturday was different.
Aquinas operated in a 3-5-2 system that routinely allowed the Raiders to find space in wide areas. Aquinas forwards Sophie Barnes and Madison McKeon used a combination of power, pace and hold-up ability to combine for 39 goals ahead of Saturday’s final.
In the 22nd minute, Barnes curled a 20-yard shot with her left-foot into the side netting to equalize.
Barnes’ goal came 35 seconds after Bartram’s Brooke Gosse opened the scoring.
In a game of best-vs-best – Aquinas and Bartram Trail were two of the top three teams in Class 6A all season – the top players on both squads gave everything.
Gosse scored a brace in her final varsity game to give her 20 goals. Her header in the 35th minute evened the match a 2-apiece. Gosse also drew the foul in the 69th minute that led to the set piece that created Aguayo Ava’s goal for Bartram’s second equalizer.
Bartram scored three of its four goals on set pieces because Aquinas defenders Lauren Medrano and Arhiana Rowe made through balls and operating in open play improbable.
Bartram Trail head coach Jen Rodriguez says her team does not often see a 3-5-2 system. When that was combined with physicality, movement and decisive passing in the midfield, it made the match challenging.
“We scored on set pieces. We have been working on those and it really paid off,” Rodriguez said. “Sometimes in a close game, that’s what makes the difference. I’m just so proud of them. This was like a dream come true for some of these young ladies.”
Aquinas often played with a high line and an offside trap on set pieces inside or near the attacking third. The Raiders couldn’t do that on corner kicks because Bartram’s 6-foot-1-inch midfielder Laci Viola stood right in front of Aquinas goalkeeper Camryn McEwen and caused chaos.
Rodriguez says the coaching staff decided to place Viola on top of the goalkeeper late in the season because its nearly impossible to win a header against her.
Fletcher’s goal came because Viola’s presence meant Aquinas couldn’t get a touch on the ball before it bounced to the Georgia Southern signee could score the biggest goal of her life.
Aquinas was deservedly devastated. First half goals from juniors Bianca Raskin and Claudia Timmer-Rodriguez were not enough to lift the Raiders (19-2-3) to a first FHSAA championship since 2017.
Instead of penalty kicks to decide the state championship, the Raiders had 19 seconds to find an equalizer that never came. It means their championship drought, of at least nine years, is the program’s longest since the 1980s.
Meanwhile, Bartram Trail will add Saturday’s last-second triumph to their wins in 2020, 2021 and 2023.
“To have the leadership of the older girls taking the younger girls under their wings. Every year, they gel so well,” Rodriguez says. “We’re never really going backwards. …It’s making sure that I continue with the environment this school has created and the culture and to keep pushing.”
