SACRAMENTO — Down by a goal to No. 3 Stone Ridge Christian at halftime, top-seeded Ripon Christian bounced back to earn its third-consecutive Sac-Joaquin Section Division VI girls soccer championship 3-1 at Hughes Stadium.
Barely two minutes into the second half, Alanna Blanco found herself lining up for a penalty kick for Ripon Christian (17-7-1). She missed a penalty kick in the semifinals and was determined not to let that happen again as she tied the game at 1-1.
“I definitely was nervous,” Blanco said. “But I knew if I just kept the ball low and shanked it hard, then I would have a good opportunity.
“Our coaches preach to us that shooting on frame creates opportunities, and I made sure not to kick it over.”
Ripon Christian goalie Morgan Schenk kicked off a brilliant sequence that led to her team’s second goal when she charged Stone Ridge Christian’s Emalee Belloli, stopped her shot and got the ball quickly going the other direction for Kylie Koolhaas to cut loose with a shot from outside the 18 for a 2-1 Ripon Christian goalie.
“I had been calling for the cross previously,” Koolhaas said. “So, I was kind of expecting it, and all I was thinking was ‘shoulders down,’ and I wanted to hit it low and on frame, so I swung my hips and hoped for the best.”
It was Blanco who fed Koolhaas for the go-ahead goal, crossing it from the right.
“I really trust Kylie out there in the middle,” Blanco said. “She is super strong, and I knew that if I got the ball to her, she could do something with it.”
Ripon Christian got its last goal on an assist from Kara Koolhaas to Tatum Sonke for Sonke to unload a bomb that was farther than Kylie Koolhaas’ goal.
“We worked on those long shots in practice yesterday,” Sonke said. “My coach was telling me what to do.
“I just kept my body low and put my foot through it.”
Stone Ridge Christian (18-2-2) of Merced got its lone goal in the second minute when Schenk came out to defend and Brooke Williams was able to sneak the ball into an empty net. The Ripon Christian defense stepped up after that, with Schenk having to come up with only four saves and just one after halftime.
“Morgan has been a great player for us all season,” Ripon Christian coach David Morris said. “She is an impact player, and you hate to see her get scored on, because she has had so many clean sheets, but she didn’t make any wrong calls. The ball bounced off her on the way out and the midfielder got it and barely got it in. You don’t like to go down 1-0 that early in the game.
“When we got to halftime, we told the girls that we were controlling the game, because we were stronger, and we could see they were fatigued, and we said we were going to get our first goal and then a second.”
Stone Ridge Christian managed just two shots in the second half.
“Obviously, they have a very skilled player in their number zero, and she couldn’t hurt us if her team didn’t have the ball,” Morris said of Belloli, one of the nation’s leading scorers with 53 goals. “If we could possess the ball, keep passing to feet and move around, that would be good for us.
“It is such an honor to coach these girls, and I am so proud of them. This particular group has accomplished so much to get three section titles in a row. That is something RC has never done, and I am proud to be their coach and proud of how they play.”
Ripon Christian started the year 4-6-1, which included a five-game losing streak. After that rough patch, Ripon Christian finished the regular season 13-1 with six shutouts in its final seven games.
“At the beginning of the year, we intentionally scheduled a particularly hard non-league schedule,” Morris said. “We lost some hard games, and the TVL has plenty of hard teams.
“We took a page out of the great basketball coach Tony Bennett’s philosophy. He said that adversity, if you use it the right way, can buy you a ticket to places you couldn’t get to any other way. I reminded the girls at halftime that we knew how to handle adversity.”
Ripon Christian must now wait until Sunday, March 1, to wait for the NorCal pairings to come out from the state CIF office.
