Sunday’s goal scorers (left-right) O’Neill, Jules Blank and Taylor Woods celebrate with the league championship plaque. BILL ACHUFF AND MICHELLE ALTON / FOR THE TIMES
Standing on the precipice of a three-peat, something the girls soccer program at Archbishop Ryan had never done, the Ragdolls did the only thing they could think of before Sunday afternoon’s Catholic League championship game:
They prayed.
It was a dominant team, one of the most accomplished in school history, so it’s not as if head coach Ryan Haney’s bunch doubted its abilities. But they prayed anyway, because that’s what you do when you want something so badly, something that means this much.
“We really wanted this win,” said junior midfielder Taylor Woods, who scored the third and final goal in Ryan’s 3–0 win over Archbishop Wood. “We came to Mass this morning at 10 a.m. and we prayed to God that we would win.”
Ryan’s dominance within the Catholic League the past three seasons has been so blanketing that it’s hard coming up with new adjectives to describe it. In fact, dating back to last season, Sunday’s win was the program’s 27th straight against league competition. Senior goalkeeper Jazmin Gonzalez and her 54 career shutouts (a school record) didn’t allow a single league goal until Little Flower slipped one by her in the semifinals, a game Ryan won in double overtime. Senior sweeper Kaitlyn McFadden is a two-time All-State selection at the position, and Woods and classmate Jules Blank proved again to be dynamite scorers.
However, when all was said and done, it was a freshman who scored the game-winning goal that propelled the Ragdolls to victory.
In a scoreless tie less than three minutes before halftime, Woods dribbled the ball down into Wood’s zone, getting off a pretty decent shot that the Vikings’ goalkeeper was able to get her hands on for a diving save. But the ball trickled away from her, and there was freshman Haley O’Neill to deposit the deciding tally into the back of the net. From there, Blank (goal no. 2), Woods, McFadden and Gonzalez did the rest.
“I just saw it bounce out of the goalie’s hands and I put it in,” O’Neill said. “I didn’t really know what happened. It seemed like a dream. I wanted to do it for the seniors and everyone next to me. Our coaches prepared us for this moment, so I knew my opportunity would come, whether it was my freshman year or senior year. But that was my goal, and I wanted it badly.”
O’Neill got it, and it’s a major reason why a team so accomplished is heading back to the Class AAA title game against Franklin Towne Charter on Wednesday, and, presumably, to the state tournament after that. It is that tournament in which the Ragdolls feel they have unfinished business to tend to after being unceremoniously bounced in the first round each of the last two seasons. It’s all the team has talked about since preseason began in August.
“We’ve worked so hard, and this is exactly where we wanted to be,” Gonzalez said. “We went over our goals that we wanted to accomplish. Now we’re here and we know what we have to do. To be the best, we know we’ll have to beat the best, and if we want to be someone then we have to win some games in states.”
The team senses its purpose, and now is ready to strike and show everybody the last two state appearances were an aberration.
“We’re a lot more mature than we were last year,” Blank said.
“The Catholic League was one of our goals, but I really want to do damage in states,” said Haney, who won his fifth league title in 10 years as head coach. “We have this huge opportunity to compete for state titles now and I don’t think we’ve made our mark as a program at that level yet. I accept that challenge, and I think we’ll see a different team (than last year) in the next couple weeks.”
When he handed the Ragdolls the championship plaque after the game, longtime Ryan athletic director George Todt told them, “I coached here for a long time, and a three-peat is the first step to becoming a dynasty.”
Todt would know: he won 650 games in 44 seasons — as well as 13 league titles, six straight from 1983–88 — as the boys soccer head coach before retiring after the 2012 season.
“When I came into the program, we had four coaches in three years,” Haney said. “We hadn’t won a playoff game in five years. Now to see where we are 10 years later, with five titles … this group here has made their own history.”
“We know this is just the beginning,” Gonzalez added. “Now starts another season for us. Winning today, we knew what we had to do. Now, we know what we want to do.” ••
Freshman Haley O’Neill scores the deciding goal in a 3–0 victory over Wood. BILL ACHUFF AND MICHELLE ALTON / FOR THE TIMES
On top of the world: The Archbishop Ryan girls soccer program climbed to new heights on Sunday, winning its third consecutive Catholic League title. BILL ACHUFF AND MICHELLE ALTON / FOR THE TIMES
