MILWAUKEE ― After three heartbreaking results in a WIAA Division 4 state girls soccer championship game, Cedar Grove-Belgium left little to chance on Saturday, rolling past The Prairie School 5-1.
Here’s three things you need to know about the victory.
On three different occasions since 2018, including last season, Cedar Grove-Belgium reached the Division 4 final as the No. 1 seed only to lose the title game.
It was the first championship in program history and the first girls team in school history to win a title a well.
Rockets coach Zac Garza said the previous heartbreak was worth it.
“It’s a humbling experience because we know so many teams would give anything to just get here,” Garza said. “We’ve felt that heartache and to come out of this as comfortable as we did is surreal. It’s been building, it’s been building. That feeling and wave of emotion as goal number four and number five went in. You could feel the years of the program building released at once.”
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Prolific forward Cora Erickson scored three goals in the final and finished with seven total in the tournament, which is the new single-tournament record in Division 4.
She got the scoring started Saturday in the 11th minute, when she beat her defender along the left side of the box before slotting it home.
Then, not even two minutes into the second half, Erickson put the Rockets up for good when she once again beat her defender and shot into the opposite corner.
Her exclamation-point goal came in the 75th minute when she picked up the dribble before outracing two defenders and getting around a helpless keeper.
Erickson finished the season with 66 goals, which was No. 1 in the state, and has 187 career goals in three years. That is already third in state history.
After Erickson’s first goal got things going, The Prairie School controlled possession for much of the final 20 minutes of the first half including tying the game in the 35th minute off a penalty kick.
Heading int halftime level at 1-1, it seems liked it would be yet another nerve-wracking experience for Cedar Grove-Belgium which proved to be not so stressful.
“We learned last year you can score a lot of goals and still lose a match,” Garza said. “The objective was to be rock solid defensively all season.”
Cedar Grove-Belgium only gave up eight goals all season.
In addition to Erickson’s two goals, Aubrey Marti broke the Hawks spirit with a strike from 25 yards out in the 61st minute to put the Rockets up 3-1.
“Once we scored (the third) the tone kind of changed,” Erickson said. “We felt a little shift.”
Contact Tom Dombeck at 920-686-2965 ortdombeck@htrnews.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, at@Tom_Dombeck.
