Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Raiders claim 15th girls state title
DELAND — Chloe O’neill is going to need a new background photo for her phone.
Presumably an image of the St. Thomas Aquinas junior forward herself holding the Florida Class 4A girls soccer championship trophy.
Taking a perfect pass from senior Bella Dorosy, O’neill drilled the ball into a wide-open net to break a scoreless tie with just over 13 minutes remaining in Friday’s state title game against Creekside.
Tara Hamilton would add another goal eight minutes later and the Raiders would go on to beat the Knights 2-0 at Spec Martin Stadium in DeLand.
It’s the 15th state championship for the Raiders (21-1-2) and it erased the memory of last year’s disappointing 1-0 loss to Viera in the state semifinals.
A photo of a year-old news article about that defeat pops up every time she opens her cellphone.
“Ever since then, that game has been on my mind,” O’neill said. “All it took was that one goal to get that burden off my chest.”
Until O’neill’s goal, Friday’s game seemed to be eerily similar to the Viera game last year, when the Raiders had a number of chances but could not get past a brilliant goalkeeper.
In this case, it was Creekside’s Madeline Behan, who had 10 saves and came up big repeatedly.
That is, until senior midfielder Julia Grosso found Dorosy running into the box. Dorosy had a shot, but with Behan racing toward her, she sent the ball to O’neill, who put it home.
“I knew the goalie was really talented and I saw Chloe coming in out of the corner of my eye, so I just slipped it in,” Dorosy said. “I knew she was going to make it.”
It was the 34th goal of the season for O’neill, tying her with Dorosy — a Florida State signee and last year’s Gatorade Player of the Year for Florida — for the most goals on the season. It was Dorosy’s team-high 26th assist.
Dorosy called the win, the last of her preps career, “very satisfying.”
“We worked for it all season. We weren’t going to let it [get away],” Dorosy said. “Being on this team has been the best part of high school and I’m going to miss it so much.”
Raiders coach Carlos Giron now has 15 state titles to his name, but says he has learned to appreciate each one of them differently.
“It’s just like anything else. You have to continue to work harder and harder,” Giron said. “Every time we come in, the other teams get closer and we have to work extra hard.”
In seven playoff games, from the district playoffs all the way to the state title, the Raiders outscored their opponents 41-0.