SOCCER: Lady Gators End Season, 0-1 Loss Against Urbana

On the same field where less than two hours earlier the Gators' boys soccer team produced a thrilling victory, the Perry Hall girls team had its long win streak and season come to an end on Friday night.

Urbana, of Frederick County, beat the Gators 1-0 on a first half goal to advance to the Class 4A North region championship game.

Perry Hall, the region's top seed, saw its 12-game win streak snapped and ended the year with a record of 12-2 in the match that was moved from the Gators'
home field to CCBC-Essex.

"You have to play 40 minutes each half and you have to leave it all on the field and we did that. We had plenty of opportunities, we just didn't have the breaks," Perry Hall coach Rick Testerman said.

The Gators came close but never could quite get their usually high-scoring attack going.

Urbana goalie Lauren Deegan made some nice saves, but was injured and left the game 18 minutes into the second half. But backup Katie Marshall continued the stellar play in the Urbana net.

"When the backup goalie came in, we though we might have our chance now. Well, she was pretty good. She came out pretty far and we had some chances to hit long shots, but we are just not use to doing that. We didn't take advantage of that a couple of times," coach Testerman said.

Perry Hall's Preslie Quaranta, Cella Cerrato and Danilyn Bock had scored in Monday's win over Westminster, but tonight, each time the Gators closed in on the goal, an Urbana player was there to stop the scoring chance.

"The key was trying to contain the Quaranta sisters," Urbana coach Chuck Nichols said. "Their team speed is as good as any team we have seen this year. We got that goal and somehow made that stand up. They are a really good team."

After Deegan denied a couple of Gator scoring chances in the game's first 30 minutes, Urbana's Katie Parness got the game's only goal with 2:35 remaining in the opening half.

As Gator goalie Emily Shandruk came out to challenge the play, Parness had just enough to slide the ball past her into the net for a 1-0 Urbana lead.

"I didn't see where the Urbana player got the step on my defender, but she obviously did, because she had that poke out front. She made a nice slide and just got it past the keeper. A good goal," Testerman said.

"Urbana played very solid and didn't make mistakes and were very composed. We moved the ball up and down the field and probably had more shots than them, but maybe not quality shots. It was a pretty well-played match for both teams."

The fourth-seeded Hawks improved to 11-5 and will meet the winner of the Kenwood-Thomas Johnson game on Tuesday for a berth in the state semifinals.

Meanwhile during a season where Perry Hall scored plenty of goals, this time the Gators didn't get any and their season ends a few steps short of a state championship.

"I told them I am extremely proud that we played as a team throughout the whole season. We won 12 in a row and lost on the front end and the back end," coach Testerman said.

His squad next season will return a lot of talented players including Preslie and Alexa Quaranta. The Gators expect to be very good again.

"Most definitely. I didn't want to demoralize the seniors with talk of next year, but certainly the message to the returning players is we will be strong next season and we're coming back for whoever is in our path next year," Testerman added.