-
Londyn Lawrence (1) and Jazmin Ponce (18) -
Hannah Voskuhl (25), Skylar Lawrence (11) and Isabel Tavarez (3) -
Jessica Helm
After her teammates recovered defensively on one end, the sophomore broke free on the other to put the game away.
Londyn Lawrence’s late counterattack goal helped seal the Oklahoma Christian School girls’ soccer team’s 3-1 playoff win against Harding Charter Prep in Edmond Monday night.
OCS (14-1) never trailed in the first-round match.
Harding (11-4) had chances but could not capitalize on enough of them to keep up with OCS.
OCS coach Jeff Stone said the Lady Saints won with a lot of prayer.
“We’ve been preparing for this all season,” Stone said. “I’m just humbled that God allowed us to get a playoff win. I’m just thankful for what he’s done for us and how he knit this team together. We just praise him, like in the movie. We praise him when we win, we praise him when we lose.”
Lawrence’s game-sealing goal came with 8:54 to play. The Lady Eagles created a 3-on-1 attacking opportunity and seemed destined to score the tying goal. The Lady Saints recovered defensively to prevent Harding getting the shot away and quickly got the ball down the pitch to Lawrence.
She sped away from the defenders and fired the ball into the net for her second goal of the game.
Lawrence said her teammates made the goal happen as much as she did.
“Every play, every time before it even gets to me, it goes through 10 of our other players,” Lawrence said. “I don’t even want to take the credit for any of my goals. It got through 10 of our girls. It touched so many people’s feet before it got to me, all I did was put the ball in the goal at the very end.”
With just over 4 minutes to play, Harding earned a free kick in the OCS half. The shot was perfectly on target and was headed directly to the upper left corner of the net. As the ball dipped under the crossbar, OCS freshman goalkeeper Hadley Watson played it perfectly, knocking it away from danger and out for a corner kick.
The spectacular save was her third of the night.
The first half was mostly a stalemate. The Lady Saints finally broke the deadlock 12:11 before halftime when junior Jessica Helm impressively curled a corner kick directly into the net. Four minutes later, Lawrence doubled the OCS lead by navigating around the Harding keeper and sending the ball into the open net.
The Lady Eagles generated a pair of good chances soon after but missed the target.
Harding came out of halftime strong, and sophomore RaKayla Coulter got the Lady Eagles back into the game with a goal two and a half minutes into the half.
Lawrence said it was frustrating to concede the goal, but it made the Lady Saints want to play harder.
“Every team has a fight to win,” Lawrence said. “It’s really, at the end of the day, who wants it more? Who wants to be the better team, who wants to work harder?”
OCS will play at either Bridge Creek or Mount St. Mary in the second round.