Region girls soccer: St. Petersburg 2, Bloomingdale 1, overtime

ST. PETERSBURG — St. Petersburg is getting pretty good at this overtime stuff.

3 Days Ago

The Green Devils needed penalty kicks in the district semifinal just to reach the Class 4A regional tournament. In Tuesday night’s girls soccer region semifinal against Bloomingdale, they found themselves in overtime again. This time, there was no need for penalty kicks when St. Petersburg scored seven minutes into the first overtime period to defeat the Bulls 2-1.

After earning a free kick about 30 yards from goal, the shot bounced off the Bloomingdale wall and across the end line for a corner kick. Killian Kingsley took the corner kick and looped it in front of the net. Freshman Alexa Goldberg tapped in the loose ball just outside the goal line to spark a wild celebration.

St. Petersburg (16-2) will play at home Friday night against Estero, which defeated Fort Myers 3-2 Tuesday.

"The shot was dribbling in and I didn’t know if the keeper was going out for it," Goldberg said. "I had to secure it before she got there."

The game was well played throughout, with both teams trading near misses in both halves. The Green Devils had a majority of the possession in the first half, but it took until the 28th minute to finally break through. That’s when Francesca Ycaza collected a clearance attempt by Bloomingdale 25 yards from goal. Her right-footer grounded into the right side of the net for a 1-0 lead.

The Bulls (13-2-1) had two near misses at the end of the first half and the Green Devils led by Tempobet a goal at halftime. That lead lasted only seconds into the second half.

Jordan Stack took a pass down the sideline and got off a left-footer from about 15 yards. Her shot curled into the upper left hand corner of the goal to tie the match at 1.

"We knew (Stack) was their top player and we wanted to keep her in check," said St. Petersburg coach Rui Farias. "I told them at the half that they were going to come out 100 miles per hour and look for (Stack). And then we just were not ready for that. But they worked hard after that."

The match was back and forth for most of the second half. Stack and Alexis Shepard has some good runs at goal early in the second half. And in the final two minutes, both Caroline DeWitt and Alexis Hiltunen had shots that just sailed over the cross bar.

That led to overtime, where the Green Devils buried their first chance.

"It’s moments, it’s seconds, it’s inches, all those clichés," said Bloomingdale coach Heather Iverson. "Kudos to them. They get a restart and put it in the net. That’s how it works. That’s the game of soccer. My team played their hearts out."

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