LACONIA – Not every Cinderella story get a happy ending.
The Belmont girls’ soccer team was happy to make the playoffs. The Raiders were even happier when they stunned No. 3 Hopkinton with a pair of last minute goals in the quarterfinals and were ecstatic after dispatching No. 2 Campbell in the semifinals.
So when Belmont senior Kelsey Scott looked up at the scoreboard one last time at Fitzgerald Field in Laconia on Sunday during the Division III championship, that gut-wrenching feeling that usually accompanies a title game loss was nowhere to be found. The Raiders, as the sixth seed, were undoubtedly the feel-good story of the tournament, and Scott was happy to be along for the wild and crazy ride, even if it ended with a 1-0 loss to top-seeded Fall Mountain.
“We started our season playing with 12 people on our team so the fact that we rebounded from that and came back to win all those playoff games and make it here is absolutely crazy,” Scott said, still mingling with friends and family after the game.
“The fact that we got past quarterfinals is still kind of crazy so the fact that we were here, I mean it was an accomplishment enough getting here. It was a tough loss but it was a good game and we were just all happy to get this far,” Scott added.
Playing in the Division III championship game for the first time since 2005 under first-year Coach Cevat Vural, Belmont gave a high-scoring Fall Mountain program its toughest test of the postseason.
There were a lot of things the Raiders did right: they dominated possession; moved the ball with ease through the middle of the field; and limited the Wildcats explosive offense to just one goal. But through all that ball movement and possession time, Belmont stumbled once reaching its offensive third of the field.
Scott and company were shutdown inside the 20 all night, a plan executed to perfection by Fall Mountain and Coach Bruce Ferland.
“We really didn’t give any serious shots inside the 20,” Ferland said after leading Fall Mountain to an undefeated season and its first state title since 2009. “We knew when they were inside the 20 we need to be shutting them down seriously because some of these girls got some good cranks.”
Scott agreed, crediting the Wildcats with a great game in the defensive end.
“I think there defense was extremely good at stepping,” Scott said. “We just couldn’t find the gaps that we usually do. Credit to their defense because they were amazing. We were connecting through the middle and up the sides, but when it got to our final third shooting, we just couldn’t connect today.”
Fall Mountain didn’t have much luck connecting, either. The rare times the Wildcats controlled the ball, Belmont’s defense was doing its best to create turnovers. But a failed clear attempt in the 15th minute did give Fall Mountain’s Ella Stewart the room she needed to make a play as she broke free from the defender, gathered the ball and angled it into the net.
Two first-half corners weren’t enough to get the Raiders on the scoreboard, but they sure thought a shot in the early stages of the second half might.
Freshman Katie Gagnon drove a ball towards the net labeled for the top shelf, but Wildcats goalie Allie Stoddart leaped up as high as she could and tipped the ball up and over the crossbar for the save.
That was the end of Belmont’s scoring chances, and as a result, that save became the end of its season.
“I’m very proud of them. I’m going to miss them all,” Vural said. “This is an awesome thing that happened to Belmont and they played a final and they’ll never forget this for the rest of their lives.”
(Jay McAree can be reached at 369-3340, jmcaree@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @JayMcAree.)