Girls soccer: Clutch kicks lift Branson to shootout win in MCAL final
The Branson School girls soccer team needed and got clutch penalty kicks from Riley Pearson and Gaby Steele as the shootout against Redwood to determine the MCAL champion went into sudden death.
The Giants, who went first in the shootout, gave the Bulls an opening by missing their seventh kick. Branson freshman Tait Anderson made the long, lonely walk to the penalty spot and smashed her shot into the upper-left corner of the net to lift Branson to its second consecutive league title. The Bulls (15-2-5) won the shootout 6-5 after a 1-1 draw through regulation and two 10-minute overtimes at San Rafael High on Saturday night.
“I was just like take a deep breath and, you know, it’s a game and I’m going to try my best but it will be OK if I don’t make it,” Anderson said of her title-winning spot kick. “Obviously, I did want to make it.”
The crucial three-kick sequence began in the fifth round with Pearson, a player who has a history of producing big moments in big games.
“She has scored an NCS final game-winning goal,” Branson coach Tyler Gottschalk said. “Last year she scored the overtime winner against Tam in the (MCAL) semi then the overtime winner here against Redwood. She’s scored twice when we’ve won at Tam – last year and the year before. It was 1-0 each time and Riley Pearson was the one scoring each time. She’s a player for a big occasion.”
Pearson said she was not only looking forward to participating in a penalty shootout, but she wanted to go fifth.
“I did kind of want to go fifth,” Pearson said. “I didn’t have an issue going fifth. You want to be in a position where you can win it for your team and so that’s what I wanted to do there.”
With Redwood (14-4-3) holding a 4-3 edge, Pearson wasn’t in position to win the game but she had to make her kick to keep Branson in the match and did.
Pearson keeps Branson alive in the shootout. #marinsoccer pic.twitter.com/6PfNtMTABG
— Ian Ross (@IRossMIJ) February 11, 2024
Redwood made its first sudden-death kick to go in front 5-4 which meant Steele, who hadn’t played at all in the 100 minutes of action prior, had to take her first meaningful touch with the MCAL crown hanging in the balance.
Steele converts a must-have pk in the sixth round. #marinsoccer pic.twitter.com/NXWirzdAQg
— Ian Ross (@IRossMIJ) February 11, 2024
“(Steele) hits the ball incredibly well,” Gottschalk said. “She was someone who took restarts for us last year, would take corners, so we had all kinds of confidence in her ability to hit a clean ball.”
Branson may have saved its best penalty kick for last as Anderson sent the Bulls fans home happy.
Anderson delivers the winning pk for Branson. #marinsoccer pic.twitter.com/rULXE1Bvpz
— Ian Ross (@IRossMIJ) February 11, 2024
“She may have hit the best penalty of all,” Gottschalk said. “She struck it clean, right into the corner. Fantastic for her to have a moment like that to start the celebrations.”
The shootout provided the conclusion to a game that saw Redwood’s Sarah Farese and Branson’s Caitlin Capitolo score goals in regulation.
Farese put the Giants ahead in the 45th minute after Ellie Kemos played a ball toward her from the left sideline. Farese volleyed the ball in the air and smashed it into the far corner of the net.
“What a strike,” Gottschalk said. “I said before the start of overtime that was a goal fit to win a game like this but we just had other ideas. But what a strike. Running away from goal even, to turn and hit it, she struck it so pure and clean. From the bench you could tell right away. The second she hit it, golazo.”
Branson’s contingency plan for going down a goal involved moving Capitolo, an all-MCAL first team defender, up top alongside striker Ally Hsieh. The gambit was delayed when Capitolo was issued a yellow card in the 53rd minute. When she re-entered the game, Capitolo was involved in the attack and scored the tying goal a couple of minutes later.
“We talked about it before the (semifinal against Marin Catholic) actually,” Capitolo said. “We said if we’re down with not a lot of time left, I’ll be moved up and other people will be moved around. So I kind of expected that at the time that I got my yellow card then Tyler told me when I was out.”
Branson momentarily appeared to take a 2-1 lead when Audrey Spaly put the ball into the net in the 62nd minute but the referee pulled the goal back for a hand ball at some point during the play.
Hsieh almost won the game for Branson in the final seconds of double overtime, following one of her trademark dazzling runs through the defense with the ball at her feet. Instead, the game went to penalties. Hsieh, Carly Lowe and Birdie Dillon were successful from the spot during the early stages of the shootout for Branson.