Catholic high schools are dual state soccer champs

Intermountain Catholic

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The Saint Joseph Catholic High School final championship soccer game against Waterford High School goes down to the wire, with St. Joseph winning 3-1 in a shootout.

DRAPER/OGDEN – The Juan Diego Soaring Eagle girls’ soccer team won its second straight 3A State Championship Title as the Saint Joseph Catholic High School Jayhawks were concluding their undefeated season with a 2A State Championship Title Oct 23 at Rio Tinto Stadium. This is the Jayhawks’ second title in three years.

In the championship game, the Juan Diego Catholic High School girls’ soccer team defeated Park City High School 2-1 in overtime. Senior Vicki Shimkus gave Juan Diego their first goal and sophomore Emily Bruder hit what is called a golden goal in overtime to win the title.

The Jayhawks won in a shoot out against longtime rival the Waterford Ravens. After the second overtime and the game still tied 1-1, five of the best kickers from each team lined up about 12 feet from the goal for the shoot out.

The goal keeper could only move sideways to block the goal. The Jayhawks fell behind 1-0 early in the shoot out when the Ravens goalkeeper converted her kick against St. Joseph’s goalkeeper Breanne Demar. Then Natalia Behnken and Emily Brandt each scored to put the Jayhawks ahead. Ivee Barton clinched the victory and the title with a third goal and a final score of 3-1. The Jayhawks revenged their loss to Waterford last year in the 2009 State Championship game.

“Our goal from day one was to win the final championship and the girls would not settle for less,” said Jayhawks coach and athletic director, Alex Salvo. “This game went down to the wire and we really had to work hard to win it; those are the games you remember.”

The only other undefeated soccer team in Utah was 5A State Champions Brighton High School.

“We remained undefeated playing 3A and 4A schools during our pre-season games,” Salvo said. “St. Joseph is a 1A school but we play 2A teams during the regular season because there are no 1A schools who have soccer teams. We have some very talented girls and we will only lose four varsity players so we will be strong again next year. This was really a team effort all season.”

Juan Diego also is blessed with very talented athletes, said Simon McFall, Juan Diego’s girls’ soccer coach and dean of students.

“We have very passionate girls who feel a connection to their school, their community and to each other and that strength helped them develop into the cohesive unit they were. Dr. Galey Colosimo has done a great job of building a sense of community at our school,” he said.

The soccer team sold 700 tickets at the school to their semi-final game, and the overwhelming support the girls received from the staff, the administration and their classmates helped propel them, said McFall. “It helped charge that battery so that during the championship game in the freezing rain in overtime, they had the extra energy to finish what they wanted to do.”

Juan Diego scored at the very end of the first half and the game was 1-0 with about five minutes left in the second half then Park City scored with just a few minutes left in the game, said McFall. “The winning goal was scored about four minutes into the overtime period,” he said. “We talked about celebrating our talents and the gifts we’ve been given and the best way to do that is to put them on display and we felt the girls really did that this year.”