CLAYTON — The best season in Edgewood girls soccer history came to a heartbreaking end on Thursday. At the same time, it’s only a beginning.
As far as outgoing senior Kimmie Franklin is concerned, she’s leaving the program is in the best shape its even been in, after these Mustangs pushed the bar a couple notches higher this fall.
Despite that, the quest for the program’s first sectional title goes on after a 1-0 loss to Danville in the Class 2A Cascade Sectional semifinals. But they also know they are one huge step closer.
“I think it definitely set a standard of we’re the Edgewood fall sport to join and that we have a good environment,” Franklin said. “I feel like the leadership we’ve had the past few years have really taught the freshmen and sophomores to be able to accept the younger kids with open arms.
“We’ve already been talking to some junior high kids who maybe want to play. This season, having so much success and we’ve had more things on social media. So I think that’s put us on the map more.”
Edgewood finishes 14-2-1, a program record for wins, having swept the Western Indiana Conference and topping Bloomington North, both for the first time.
“This is now the standard,” Edgewood coach Brittany Tucker said. “This is what we strive for every single year. It’s no longer OK to just be OK. We know we can be great so we’re striving for that every single year.”
The loss might be forgettable but certainly not the season as a whole nor the time they spent together going on the ride of their lives. It left Franklin plenty of good feelings and memories to relish.
“The team chemistry and how we trust each other,” she said. “Each person has really stepped up and played their role on the field this year. We have such a close relationship and lot of us out there are juniors and seniors, so we’ve been playing together for a while now.
“And the passion that we all have for the game. I think all of us are so in-it-to-win-it this season and we’ve had so many big wins this year. We all wanted it really, really bad.”
And they made it a journey worth sharing together.
“They are such a blast,” Tucker said. “I’ve said before, they either get us crying in laughter or crying because they have something deep to tell us and we never know what’s going to happen. It can come out of nowhere, so they are one of the most fun teams.”
Just when it seemed Edgewood had dodged that one piece of misfortune that seemed destined to decide a scoreless tussle, Danville (11-7) turned bad luck to good.
For nearly 77 minutes, the Mustangs and goalkeeper Macey Crider had snuffed out Danville’s offense. That included a dramatic moment with 15:46 left when Danville got a call in the box to earn a penalty kick. But Crider, who had 10 saves, was all over it, anticipating a shot to her right, she dove and stopped the shot to a roar from the Mustang rooting section.
Then a corner kick did the trick, crossing the goal mouth high enough to elude a leaping Crider. It landed in an open space about 10 yards front of the net. That’s where a charging Karsyn Shores met the ball with her left foot on it, redirecting it and earning a mugging from her teammates with just 3:23 left.
“It was going to be either one way or the other,” Tucker said. “So they just got the goal today.”
The Mustangs gave up 10 shots on goal and generated only one themselves as finding a foot for a quality shot in the final third eluded them much of the day. But Edgewood was also on its way to an 11th shutout on the season to keep things even.
“We went toe-to-toe with them,” Tucker said. “They executed our game plan perfectly. Kinsey (Rose), Halee (Patel), Sophie (Beatty), our outside-mids, everyone. They knew what they were doing and stepped up. They had their best game of the season.”
“This is definitely the best team we have played all season,” Tucker said. “And we came out and rose to the occasion. We weren’t scared at all and I feel like we dominated them at points. You could tell they were not happy to be pushed around and have a team that was matching them.
“So I thought we did extremely well.”
That’s just the kind of performance that’s expected now, to be at their best against the best.
“That’s what we’ve been trying to prove to ourselves all season,” Franklin said. “That it’s, you know, it’s cool the underdog story and winning, but we are a good team and we have the skill and we come into games with the confidence we know we can win.”
Bloomington South was ready to play and ready to score a lot of goals, with all nine coming in the first half to bury Bedford North Lawrence in the semifinals of the Class 3A Terre Haute North Sectional.
The Panthers (12-3-1) will take on Terre Haute North (13-3-2) for the title on Saturday at 2 p.m.
South scored just a few minutes in and kept up the pressure as Val Bunde had another four-goal outing, giving her 13 in her last five games, while Maddie Norman and Elowen Norman each had two apiece. The other was an own goal.
Up 9-0, the game was ended with 20 minutes left via mercy rule as the Stars (3-10-1) were not taken lightly by the defending sectional champs.
“They were ready to play,” South coach David Prall said. “The energy was good.”
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