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Surging Bears Girls Soccer Tripped Up by Lee Williams In Double OT Loss

Bears' Winning Streak Snapped, Lee Williams Achieves First 4A Grand Canyon Region Win In Program History

The 4A #20-ranked Bradshaw Mountain High School Bears girls soccer team was riding free and easy coming into the Thursday night, January 17th, home matchup against the Lee Williams Volunteers. Bradshaw Mountain was on a six-game winning streak and outscored their opponents 39-2 in that span.

However, Bradshaw Mountain High School girls soccer Head Coach John Sterling had a suspicion a speed bump was coming. That speed bump occurred on Thursday night, as the Bears lost 4-3 in double overtime to the Lee Williams Volunteers.

Lee Williams Volunteers senior Mercedes Serrano (#20) smiles as her teammate Cindy Ramirez (#5) runs to congratulate her after scoring the go-ahead goal in double overtime on a free kick against the Bradshaw Mountain High School Bears on Thursday, January 17th, 2019 in Prescott Valley, Arizona. (Photo by Torrence Dunham / Signals)

“They needed a little humility,” Sterling said after the defeat. “The first half of the season was way too easy and I had a suspicion that we were going to stumble somewhere like this. That’s what happened and that’s what we needed. So we’re going to come back a little stronger now.”

The team that tripped up Bradshaw Mountain High School is a surprising one as the victory marked the first 4A Grand Canyon region win in program history for Lee Williams. The Volunteers were previously 0-14 since the region was formed prior to the 2016-2017 season.

“I’m just super proud of them and this is a great victory,” Lee Williams Volunteers Head Coach Chris Selby said. “We set this season to make the playoffs. This is the first step, beating a good team like this. We came up here to do this and we did it.”

The eventual monumental program victory didn’t start off ideal for Lee Williams, as Bradshaw Mountain senior Hailey Denman opened the scoring early in the first half. Six minutes before halftime, Volunteers freshman Mackenzie Cathey knotted the game up.

The second half didn’t start much better than the first for Lee Williams. Denman scored back-to-back goals for Bradshaw Mountain in the first ten minutes of the half to open a 3-1 advantage for the Bears.

However, Volunteers senior Mercedes Serrano grabbed the spotlight from Denman late in the second half and scored two goals to tie the game, the second coming with just four minutes remaining in regulation.

After a scoreless first overtime, a final ten minutes of play would either decide a winner or the game would go down as a tie.

“I basically told them that we had to find it in ourselves to dig as deep as we can,” Selby said. “No matter how tired we were, no matter how much we hurt, no matter how things weren’t going our way and pull it out. I said you guys put yourself in this position and if you want it, it’s there for you to take it.”

At 2:37 left in the match, Serrano sent a free kick into the back of the net, giving her team the lead and achieving a hat trick. After suffering an injury earlier in the season, she had plenty of time to practice for this exact moment.

“I’m coming off of a knee injury and I haven’t been able to do much practice-wise,” Serrano said. “So I would go to the field and just practice my free kicks because that’s my job. It paid off tonight.”

Even with the lead, Lee Williams had to stave off the Bears attack for another two minutes.

“Keeping possession on their half of the field was our main goal,” Serrano said.

With less than 40 seconds remaining in the contest, Denman broke free and thought she scored a game-tying goal, however, the score did not count because it was ruled offsides by the official as time ran out.

After the crushing defeat, Denman and the Bears look forward to fixing mistakes in practice before their next match.

“We need to improve our passing for sure,” Denman said. “I’d say looking for options out of the back instead of just booting it forward. That just isn’t working and we need to fix that.”

The defeat dropped Bradshaw Mountain High School to fourth place in the region, behind undefeated Mohave High School and Flagstaff High School and below 2-1 Prescott High School who lost to Flagstaff on Thursday night.

“This is a tough region,” Sterling said. “We just got to tell them to get their heads back into the game, play their game, focus on what they do best and what they’ve done best all season long. They didn’t do it tonight.”

The Bears are back on the field at Bradshaw Mountain High School in Prescott Valley on Tuesday, January 22nd, for a region matchup against the Mingus Union High School Marauders. Start time is 5 pm.

Photo Gallery by Torrence Dunham / Signals

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