As her teammates jumped in unison in front of her, goalkeeper Mackenzie Harvey stood and watched.
When the ruckus quieted down, Harvey pounced and wrapped junior teammate Effie Morrison in a bear hug. She then danced on her left foot and joined in the history-making celebration.
Minutes later, following a team huddle in the locker room, members of the New Hope High School girls soccer team scattered to talk to friends and family. Erin Robertson had other plans. The senior walked the fence line to collect the speaker that stood to the left of the team’s bench. Firmly in her grasp, Robertson returned the speaker to the locker room confident in the knowledge that she, Harvey, Morrison, and the Lady Trojans would get to enjoy the music on their home field one more time.
Harvey came up with a key save in penalty kicks, while Morrison and Robertson were part of New Hope’s perfect execution in the shootout that propelled it past Oxford for a 4-2 victory in the Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 5A North State semifinals. New Hope (10-2-1) will play host to Lewisburg, which beat Germantown 2-1 on Saturday, at 6 p.m. Tuesday for the North State championship. The winner will advance to the state title game at 5:30 p.m. Saturday at Clinton High.
This will be the first trip to the North State title game for New Hope and coach Mary Nagy, who has been the coach of the program since the 2003-04 season.
“We know these girls don’t quit,” Nagy said. “They just persevere. I think that is a tribute to them growing up, being seventh-graders together, being eighth-graders together. They have that bond.”
Nagy tried to strengthen that bond by delivering a pregame speech in her classroom in the high school that focused on team. An English teacher, Nagy couldn’t help bring levity to the moment by being perfectly clear and telling her players “team” is a collective noun that is singular.
“That is what we are. We are a unit,” Nagy said. “Singular noun. Family. Team. We’re one, so we are a well-oiled machine when we play together. If not, we’re done. If you go out there be that one unit, you will win.”
Robertson, Shiloh Wilson, and Ashley Martian are the only seniors on a team that has built a playoff tradition the past four years. In the past three seasons, New Hope has needed overtime to advance past the first round only to fall to Ridgeland in the second round. This year, with Ridgeland eliminated in the first round, New Hope took care of matters on its home field after being outshot 17-6 after 80 minutes of regulation and 20 minutes (two 10-minute periods) of overtime. The teams then battled through two five-minute Golden Goal overtime sessions before being pushed to penalty kicks. Each team picked five participants to start the first round, but New Hope’s efficiency made that a formality.
Sam Vogel scored to the lower right corner on the team’s first attempt. Morrison followed with a shot to the lower left corner. Martian duplicated Morrison’s effort to set the stage for Robertson, who saw action in the first half but didn’t play a lot on the day. That didn’t faze Nagy, who said Robertson, a left-footer, was deadly on her penalty kicks in practice, so she knew she was going to use her.
After the game, Robertson smiled and said she knew the match was on her shoulders and that she didn’t want to make that long walk from midfield to the penalty marker again, which she called “the longest walk ever,” because she had a lot of time to think about what could happen.
“I was nervous. I am not going to lie,” said Robertson, who wanted the ball on the ground but lifted it to the upper right corner. “During practice, every time (coach Will Taylor) called me to do a penalty kick I always made it, and I always had confidence in myself knowing that I had great form and that I have great power. It was just easy for me to go out there. I felt confident. It was nerve-wracking because it is all up to me to score and win this game, but it is doable.”
It also helped that Robertson had the perfect attitude for someone to step into a match-clinching situation.
“Erin is one of our leaders and one of our captains,” Nagy said. “When she was younger, she always had a starting position on the field. She had an injury this year that took her off the field and had some younger girls to take her starting position, but she never complained and was here every day and worked hard. … I am extremely proud of her. She is just a class act. I can’t say enough about her.”
Robertson had a chance to win the match thanks to Harvey, a junior, who came up big with a save to her left on Oxford’s second attempt. With the shooter mixing her footwork to try to distract her, Harvey focused on the ball and waited. When the Oxford player went to her left, Harvey’s left, she easily stopped the ball with her hands.
“You try to read (body language) and you try to get it at the last second,” Harvey said. “There is not much time to, but you dive and you hope for the best. You give it all you have got because if not, that is it.
“I couldn’t read (the second shooter) really well. That one I just paid attention to the ball and lock onto it because she was changing footwork. I didn’t really see anything (in her body language). That one was up in the air.”
Said Nagy, “Mackenzie has been hurt all year with her knees. She is a young goalie, but she has played the sport at a young age, so she knows the angles and she watches the foot and makes some pretty good guesses as to where the ball is going. She is a workhorse. She had a great day in the goal.”
Oxford missed its next attempt off the crossbar to give New Hope the window it needed to make history.
For Martian, who said earlier in the week many of the Lady Trojans didn’t know what a “square pass” was when they first started playing, it is mind boggling to think the team will play for a North State title. In 2011, the team earned its first playoff victory when it defeated Oxford 3-2 in overtime.
“I got in the locker room and I just cried. I was so excited,” Martian said. “The whole team, we are so happy and we can’t even believe we have made it this far. We have never done it before. For it to happen is just amazing. We have made history twice, and I have been on the team both times we have done it, and it is amazing.”
Robertson also has been a part of the history. She credited the captains for reminding everyone at halftime they had to play as a team if they were going to write another chapter in what now is the best season in school history.
“Effie stepped up and was a leader, and at halftime she was like, ‘It is up to us. We have to do this if we want to make history,’ ” Robertson said. “Today we made history and we played as one, and I love these girls with all my heart. I would not trade them for the world.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor.
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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