Cypress third time’s no charm

from news-press.com

TAMPA — The Class 4A state semifinals haven’t been kind to the Cypress Lake High School girls soccer team. Thursday was no different.

In the space of 90 seconds, Fort Lauderdale Cardinal Gibbons turned a 1-0 lead into a 3-0 advantage going into halftime. It was more than the Panthers could overcome.

Cypress Lake (22-5) lost 4-0 to the Chiefs, the No. 6-ranked team in the nation, according to ESPN Rise, at the University of Tampa’s Pepin Stadium.

The Panthers have never won a state semifinal soccer game.

“We were hoping the third time was the charm,” first-year Cypress coach Bo McMahon said.

“We had all the experience coming in here. I wish I could say we played our best today, but we didn’t. I attribute a lot of that to Cardinal Gibbons. They were a great team.”

Senior forward Kim Schumacher scored the first goal for the Chiefs (29-0-2) in the eighth minute of play. The goal came on a through pass from sophomore midfielder Sara Trexler that found the foot of Schumacher, who drove it into the upper right side of the net.

In the 11th minute, Chiefs junior April Ortenzo had a shot on an open Cypress Lake goal. What looked like a sure thing for Gibbons turned into a great defensive play by Panthers junior Desiree Meyer. Meyer flew in out of nowhere, blocking Ortenzo’s shot with her diving body for an amazing save.

The Cypress defense had another incredible stand just a few minutes later. As Gibbons peppered Panthers sophomore keeper Ashley Helenbrook with four consecutive shots, Helenbrook stood strong, blocking two of them and watching a third careen off the cross bar. The fourth got caught in a scrum and, again, Cypress escaped unscathed.

“That should have been good momentum for us,” McMahon said.

“But we couldn’t seem to keep momentum at any point today. In our past games, once we took momentum, we held on to it. Today, that’s the role Gibbons played. They took it and it was really hard for us to get it back.”

After those two defensive stands, Cypress appeared to be unfazed, but Gibbons was far from finished.

The Chiefs scored back-to-back goals in the 32nd and 34th minutes. Sophomore Jennifer Grant tallied the first and sophomore Sarah Motta hammered in the second on a perfect drive from 25 yards out that snuck between Helenbrook’s fingertips and the crossbar.

“We underestimated this team for sure. We didn’t come out as hard as we should have. We always let teams play first, but we just let them play too much,” Panthers senior Jesse Minor said.

“What we do is we work the ball around and get teams frustrated. But we were the frustrated team out there, and we just kept taking it out on each other.”

Cypress had opportunities to score, but not many.

The Panthers had just five shots on goal to the Chiefs’ 12. Junior Sarah Yates had two of those shots, but they were saved by Gibbons junior keeper Haylee Shoaff as she notched her 19th shutout of the season.

“We knew they were ranked. We knew they were going to be really good. We knew that, but we didn’t do anything about it. We could have fought back harder,” Yates said.

photos from this game