On Sat. March 4, Mater Dei Varsity Girls’ Soccer played JSerra in the CIF Championship game. After placing second in league to JSerra, Mater Dei was hoping to prevail.

“As a team we showed up to school early, listened to music, ate lunch and watched inspirational videos,” said Senior Lanni Barrie.

The girls have their mentality prepared for the game before they got on the bus to Corona High School, where a large amount of Mater Dei students and parents crowded the stands.

In the beginning of the game, Mater Dei came out fighting hard, but JSerra controlled the momentum of the game. A few minutes into the game, starting right defender Kelsey Crowder was injured and had to leave the game. Juju Ruiz subbed in for her and kept Mater Dei’s defense strong. The Monarchs kept feeding senior captain Haley Hopkins the ball, and as she penetrated through JSerra’s defense Mater Dei started to gain a rhythm. At the end of the first half the score was 0-0.  

Knowing that 45 minutes of the game remained, both teams came out very aggressive in the second half. Mater Dei was passing the ball better and had a few more opportunities on goal. The girls were able to keep the ball on JSerra half of the field and were successfully earning a number of corner kicks.

With 20 minutes, JSerra left midfielder crossed the ball to their top forward who scored. Now down 1-0, Mater Dei went into an offensive mind zone.

“One of the really neat things about this team is that we’re committed to play until the final whistle and we always believed a good thing was about to happen,” said Coach Matty West.

The Monarchs took out one defender and placed another forward up top, showing they were determined to score. They had a few more shots by the offense and strong defensive plays by seniors Brittany Wiehe, Lauren McKimmey and Juju Ruiz. With two minutes left, sophomore Lily Slater was able to get past the defense and slipped the ball into the net to tie the game 1-1. With the support of many Monarchs, the crowd and players went wild.

“It made me reevaluate the true meaning of our team and all of the hard work we had put in to get to that position. We fought for every moment and minute,” said Brittany Wiehe.

At the end of the second half, the game went into double overtime. Both teams fought hard. Wiehe saved a key shot at the end to keep Mater Dei in the game. At the end of the 20 minute period the game was still tied, so it went to penalty kicks.

JSerra defeated Mater Dei after winning 5-4 in PKs.  

Although Mater Dei lost, the girls were still proud of everything they had accomplished together as a team.

“I feel like this year was the first year that our team was a team of best friends. We were the underdogs, which last year we weren’t, and we went further this year. We wanted to prove people wrong, and we did,” said senior Missy Taylor.