THUNDER BAY --- Curling and soccer don’t seem like a natural fit, but Rylie Paul makes it work.
The St. Patrick Fighting Saints athlete earlier this year won a silver medal in curling at the Ontario Winter Games and on Thursday night added to her medal count, scoring what proved to be the championship-clinching goal, with five minutes to go in regulation, as the Saints won their fourth high school girls’ soccer championship in five seasons with a 2-1 win over the defending champion St. Ignatius Falcons.
It was St. Patrick’s 11th title since 1998, the Falcons claiming the other 13 in that span.
“It feels very surreal,” said Paul. “It just feels like I’m getting flashbacks from Grade 9, winning my first year. It’s really special to do it with this team because they’re such an amazing group of girls and I could never imagine doing it with anyone else.”
The Saints scored first, but more importantly, they also scored less, Paul’s 75th-minute tally breaking a 1-1 tie and avoiding another championship match sent to extra time.
“It was such a great ball by Maya Cutting. It couldn’t have been a better ball,” Paul said.
“It was right into the space, right into my feet. I saw the goalie. I just took a touch around her and buried it. It felt very nerve-wracking and scary. I was thinking if I don’t make this, we could go to overtime for the third year in a row. I just did not want that, so I was like, I’ve got to get this one in.”
St. Patrick’s first goal came on a penalty kick, after the ball went off the hand of St. Ignatius’s Morgan Laplante inside the penalty area.
Mikayla Pasqualino lined up and fired the ball low to keeper Bridget Cameron’s left.
Cameron dove, but couldn’t catch up and the ball tangled in the mesh, the Saints taking a 1-0 lead in the seventh minute of the contest.
“I get really nervous with PKs. I just had to talk myself through it and just do what I do when I take a PK and just calm myself down,” Pasqualino said.
The Saints took a 1-0 lead into halftime, but it only took the Falcons two minutes after the break to net the equalizer, the goal coming on a lengthy free kick.
Jasmin Polito, lined up 35 yards out, booted the ball high toward St. Patrick goaltender Sophia Campagna, celebrating her 16th birthday, and the Saints keeper couldn’t quite leap high enough to knock the soaring ball away, the game now tied 1-1.
Cutting had a great chance to restore the St. Patrick lead in the 63rd, but her shot from inside the box curved a little too much to the left and just a tad too high, ringing off the crossbar.
Polito broker free a few minutes later down the left side of the Fort William Stadium field, but Campagna made no mistake this time, preserving the tie.
St. Patrick coach Frank Ruberto said he’s team played hard, which is all he could ask.
“We lapsed a little bit in the second half, but I think all-in-all we had a good game and I think we deserved that win,” he said.
“We played well in the back and our passing was pretty precise. That through ball at the end was really good. We had a game plan for (the Falcons) and how to slow them down and it was working well in the first half. It wore them down a bit.”
The Saints move on to the OFSAA ‘AAA’ championship, which starts on June 6 in Windsor, Ont.
