Early Goal Sends Knights into Elite Eight

Just under eight minutes into Tuesday's girls soccer Sectional match, the Francis Howell North Knights were awarded a corner kick.

The opening minutes of the contest between Francis Howell North and Fort Zumwalt West had been back and forth with neither team able to control the game. The Knights pressured the Jaguars and forced a corner kick.

Howell North's Nicole Massarand sent the ball toward the goal and found Zumwalt West's goalie Emilee Johnson. The Jaguars' keeper punched the ball out of danger, or so she thought. The ball actually found the Howell North's Hali Long, or rather Long's forehead. 

The sophomore defender leapt for the ball and headed it past Johnson for a 1-0 Howell North lead.

“Hali Long was right there to snap it in,” Howell North head coach Mark Olwig said. “We’re extremely excited about that because we like to go for the ball, and when it touches someone else, we like to stop. But we stayed with the play. That’s one of those things we have been trying to emphasize—we have to stay with the play the entire time. It paid off and Hali snapped in the header.”

The goal would stand as the lone tally for the Knights. Howell North would survive a late charge from the Jaguars and hold on for the 1-0 win.

“You never, especially in these type of games [if one goal is enough],” Olwig said. “In these sectional games, things can happen in a hurry. We were hoping we could punch one in, and we had some chances. You start to wonder then what could happen.”

Howell North advances to the Elite Eight of the Class 3 tournament with the win. The Knights will now take on Incarnate Word Academy in the Quarterfinals on Saturday. Time and location are to be determined.

“Our players, the whole season, have been learning how to win,” Olwig said. “We may not play our greatest game, but we’re finding a way to get that goal to stay in games. With the exception of one or two games, that’s how we’ve played all year. We’ve stayed in games and given ourselves a chance. I don’t think there’s a one or two players you can point out—this was a total team effort.”

The Knights are now 17-6-1 on the year.

Scoring just eight minutes into the game meant Howell North had to spend the next 72 minutes making sure the lead held up. It almost didn’t.

Down to the last 10 minutes of its season, the Jaguars upped the pressure. Zumwalt West attacked a tiring Howell North squad and pressed for a tying goal.

With 3:49 left on the clock, Zumwalt West’s Margaret Richard found herself one-on-one with Howell North keeper Erika Wind. Richard booted the ball past Wind and sent the Lady Jags bench into celebration mode. There was just one problem: the play was offside.

Howell North would recover from the scare and held on for the win.

“It’s bittersweet,” Zumwalt West head coach Jack Baldwin said. “The season ends prematurely as far as we’re concerned. It was the little things that added up over the course of the game that came back to haunt us.”

Staring down a long summer with a loss, both teams played a hard, tough, physical game. Fouls were frequent as players on both sides fought for position. The physicality reached a high point when Richard picked up a yellow card after tossing Long to the turf while both players chased after a loose ball.

The Jaguars end the season with an 18-6-1 mark.

“The girls had a great year,” Baldwin said. “They won a conference, tying with Howell North. They won a district, hadn’t done that in a while. They won 18 games, hadn’t done that in a while. Doubled our goal production. We scored 24 goals last year and scored 50-something this year. We gave up 15 goals this year, last year we allowed 18. It’s a good team. We’ll be back.”