Champion too powerful for Gibbons

Defending state champion Jacksonville Bolles scored three times in a four-minute span of the second half to erase an early deficit and cruised to a 5-1 win over Cardinal Gibbons in the Class 2A girls soccer state championship at Spec Martin Memorial Stadium on Wednesday night in DeLand.

Jacksonville Bolles (18-3-2), winner of eight state titles, trailed early on a goal by Chiefs senior Maya Alicea in the 11th minute but scored the equalizer in the 34th minute when Avery Patterson converted a penalty kick to forge a 1-1 halftime tie.

Bolles took command early in the second half when Olivia Candelino scored her team-leading 33rd goal of the season in the 46th minute. Aubrey Ramey scored the first of her two second-half goals in the 49th minute and Patterson scored her second a little over a minute later to make it 4-1.

Ramey finished off the scoring in the 63rd minute to give the Bulldogs their 10th straight victory.

“We knew we had to shut down more than their three main players,” said Cardinal Gibbons coach Margo Flack in a phone interview. “I thought we did a good job of that in the first half and went up 1-0. We had a questionable [penalty kick] at the end of the half, but that happens, and then those three took the game over.”

Cardinal Gibbons (18-2-4) was making its first trip to the state championship game since 2009, when it lost to Ponte Vedra in the Class 4A final, 1-0 (4-3 on penalty kicks).

“They were a good team and we kind of fell apart there for a few minutes,” Flack said. “This moment is big, and the emotion got to a couple of them. You can’t give a good team like that any of those minutes, and we did.”

This was the first postseason meeting between the teams.

“They are only the second [Gibbons] team to get here and it sure wasn’t an easy path,” said Flack, whose team had won seven straight games. “They fought through some really difficult games in the playoffs. We refused to give up, even tonight.

“I am beyond proud of them. They were a special group.”