The Cypress Bay high school girls’ soccer team falls in the Class 7A state title game

It wasn’t supposed to end this way for the Cypress Bay girls’ soccer team.

The Lightning had battled back to the state championship game one year after suffering a crushing 1-0 defeat in quest of the program’s first state title.

But the wait for those elusive championship rings will have to be put on hold again for Cypress Bay.

Cypress Bay lost 5-0 against St. Johns Bartram Trail in the Class 7A state championship game on Friday night at Spec Martin Stadium.

Bartram Trail scored a goal less than a minute into the game. The Bears dominated the remainder of the first half, taking a virtually insurmountable 3-0 lead to the halftime locker room.

Then they came out and scored twice more in the first seven minutes of the second half to turn the game into a rout.

“I don’t exactly know what to say, embarrassing is probably an understatement,” said Cypress Bay coach Kate Dwyer, who is finishing up her 14th year running the program. “They won every single air ball, it’s really that simple. We didn’t even get to be a part of this game because they just plowed through us. They were just the better team by a lot tonight and we’re just going to have to live with that.”

While Cypress Bay boasted a No. 4 overall national ranking in Max Preps, Bartram Trail came as the No. 1 team and left with a 21-1-3 record and first state championship in program history.

The Bears’ Ella Dudley got loose down low and scored just 55 seconds into the game.

“That, obviously, wasn’t the way you wanted to start, but I don’t think that was as big a deal as it might normally be because we were down even worse early on against Coral Reef in the regional final [2-0 13 minutes in] and we managed to come all the way back and win,” Dwyer said. “They just towered over us in the center and midfield and we ... we just couldn’t even play. They were just a stronger bigger better them than us, it just boiled down to that.”

“It’s not like we didn’t want it but clearly they [Bartram Trail] wanted it more than us,” said junior Megan Morgan, who led the team in goals this season with 32. “They came to play and we just needed to come harder but just couldn’t match their energy.

Said Dwyer: “To be honest, we lost five starting seniors last year, we didn’t even think we would get back here this year so in a way we might have actually overachieved. Still, you hate to make all the way back here and just have something like this happen to you.”