BECKLEY, W.Va. — Two goals in a span of 1:42 in the first half allowed Charleston Catholic’s girls soccer team to take control of Saturday’s Class AA-A title game against Fairmont Senior.
It was all Irish from there, as they added three more second-half goals to cruise to a 5-0 victory over the Polar Bears at Carter Stadium.
With the win, Charleston Catholic (10-1) claimed its second consecutive state championship and seventh overall.
“I’m just thrilled to get to be here and to get to play,” Irish coach Amy Mullen said. “I knew these girls were strong and good players and I was just hoping we’d get a season in.”
The Irish appeared to take a 1-0 lead with 14 minutes remaining in the opening half when Shannon Karr found the back of the net, but an offside call kept the match scoreless.
However, 3:11 later, Bella Cinco accounted for the game’s first goal when she scored on an open net, giving Catholic a 1-0 lead 10:49 before halftime.
The Irish doubled their advantage with 9:07 to play in the opening half on a goal by Lindsay Carr, allowing Catholic to take the 2-0 advantage into halftime.
“These senior girls know the dedication they want to put out and it spreads like fire and trickles down to the freshmen,” Mullen said.
Cinco scored her second goal in the 47th minute of action to up the Irish lead to 3-0, before a goal from Jill Uy put the Polar Bears (17-3-1) behind by four.
“Amazing balls by Lindsay Carr breaking free with those,” Cinco said of how she scored both goals. “I was pretty open and she battled through and I happened to finish.”
Karr capped the scoring in the contest to make it a five-goal margin, which was plenty good enough to aid the dominant defensive effort from the Irish.
“After watching (Fairmont Senior’s Tricia) Lemasters put three goals in yesterday, I thought we needed to stop her,” Mullen said. “Any chance we could, we needed to double team her and that was really the game plan.”