Venice wins state girls soccer title!

DELAND — Eighty minutes of regulation time and 20 minutes of overtime was not enough to determine the Class 6A girls state soccer champion on Friday night.

And even when the Venice High girls soccer team finally wrapped up its first state title in program history, there was a bit of confusion on whether it really happened.

Believe it: The Indians are state champions.

Senior goalie Ashton Pennell stopped three of four penalty kicks, including making two saves on the same shooter, and Venice came away with a 3-1 victory in penalty kicks over Miami Lourdes Academy after a scoreless 100 minutes on the pitch at Spec Martin Stadium on the campus of Stetson University.

All Venice coach Gary Bolyard said was “redemption” before he received the first-place trophy after getting the runner-up award last year following a 2-1 loss to the same Bulldogs.

It was a long and grinding process for the Indians to land the top price, not just through a coronavirus pandemic, but through all the previous squads that helped lay the foundation for a moment like this.

“It’s exciting. You look back at all the girls in the past that have built this program to a pedestal,” Bolyard said. “It wasn’t what happened this year, it was all the years combined leading up to this point.

“These girls finished it off.”

Friday night’s defensive-minded contest seemed destined to go the distance and be determined by the often-hated penalty kicks.

But when you have a goalie in Pennell who has been working on saving shots from the dot in practice over the years, it makes the process a little more comfortable.

“There was a little bit of nerves,” Pennell said. “I’m a captain. So I had to keep my composure for everyone else involved. If I would have been nervous, everyone else would have been nervous.

"I feel that the way all of us were holding ourselves, we looked very confident on the field. Going into PKs I was very confident in myself and the team.” 

What also helped the Indians was when Kiersten “Kiki” Slattery took the first shot. Then Pennell made not one but two saves on Eva Cova.

Pennell stepped out too quickly on Cova’s first attempt to the goalie’s left, but guessed right again when Cova went to the right side.

There is somewhat of a science to the way Pennell plays the goaltender position.

“I had a lot of practice with it,” Pennell said. “I’ve just done it a lot, but I read the way they are opening their foot. If they are swinging across they are going to my left. If they are swinging with an open foot they are going to my right. It’s pretty easy to read players who don’t take them that often. Some of the players are hard to read.”

Venice’s Rachel Dalton, the best player on the field for most of the match, converted the second penalty kick, and Pennell made another save, this time somewhat easy on Alexa Sanchez.

Both the Indians’ Olivia Fair and Lourdes’ Maura Herrholz converted in the third round, making it 3-1.

Venice’s Eileen Solomon missed, but when Pennell stopped Coco Agui, the match appeared to be over.

“I knew,” Bolyard said. “Did you see me run on the field? And the one ref told me to get off the field. I said, ‘We just won.’ ”

But the lead official did not blow his whistle. 

“I knew it was over,” Pennell said. “I was confused. I was really confused. I was waiting for the ref to blow his whistle. We have three; they have one. They’re not winning.”

When the whistle finally sounded there was a wild celebration with tears of joy this time.

“We’re crying because we are happy and it’s our last game,” Pennell said. “So we went out with a lot of intensity. We played one of our best games.”

Last year, the tears represented a different emotion as one of the two Lourdes’ goals a season ago was a bit controversial — “It still didn’t go in,” Pennell said.

The loss fueled the fire for the returning players, especially the seniors.

“I feel like we did have it. We’ve been preparing since last year,” Pennell said. “All of us had that goal in mind to go back and try again. And here we are, first place. It feels amazing.”

The Indians (16-4-1) employed a strategy of letting the Bulldogs’ defenders play the ball in their own end of the field unmarked while plotting a counter-attack when the opportunity arose.  

“We had a strategy and it worked,” Bolyard said. “We were going to counter. We knew we were going to frustrate them and be able to counter on them.”

While it did not produce any goals, it prevented Lourdes (12-3-1) from getting on the scoreboard. 

“Our defense is probably one of the best I’ve been with and I’ve played on a lot of teams,” Pennell said. “It’s just fun to watch. It’s fun to watch a game from the goal with two very strong defenses.”

It also was fun for the Indians to watch Pennell perform in penalty kicks.

“We feel good in that,” Bolyard said. “Also we practice our PKs every day. Do you ever want to see it go to PKs? No, because you hate to be on the other end of that.”

Bolyard and the Indians were on the right side Friday night.

“They faced a lot of adversity this year,” he said. “Rough start, changing formations, but they believed in each other. They didn’t let things get them down. They kept working and working and they didn’t.”

Dennis Maffezzoli is the deputy sports editor for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and chief reporter for Sarasota Herald-Tribune and HTpreps covering Sarasota, Manatee and Charlotte counties. Support local journalism by subscribing.