Frederica boys lose heartbreaker in soccer state title game
May 16—Frederica Academy scratched and clawed for every inch at Mercer's Betts Stadium for the second straight day.
The boys' tenacity was enough to lift them into the state championship game, but they ultimately fell shy of their title goals 1-0 Saturday against Holy Spirit Prep.
"At the end of the day, it was a great high school soccer game," said boys head coach Tim O'Sullivan. "Credit to Holy Spirit, they've a very, very good team. But at the same time, I think the way that we battled, the way that we played as a collective whole, made this a really good game."
Holy Spirit broke a scoreless game when a kick slipped out of the grasp of Frederica's keeper and trickled into the net with 23:14 remaining in the contest.
The Knights got at least one clean look at a game-tying score, but it was not meant to be as the opposing keeper knocked the ball away.
Holy Spirit dominated possession much of the contest, firing off 18 shots to just five for Frederica. Still, the sixth-seeded Knights were just one break away from sending the game into overtime against the state's top seed.
"We're not going to have the same kind of chances that Holy Spirit did, but we had one off the bar, we had a couple of free kicks that were close," O'Sullivan said. "That's something. It's a game of inches. We just ended up a little bit on the short end of the inches.
"But we did everything we could to be in that position, you can't ask for anything more. I'm really proud of the group."
