Parkland takes eighth straight conference crown
Parkland’s Aristea Gougoustamos was excited to celebrate her goal in overtime of Saturday’s Eastern Pennsylvania Conference girls soccer championship game.
Except, no one was celebrating with Gougoustamos.
“I hit it off the inside post and I knew it went in,” she said, “but no one was doing anything. I jumped up in the air waiting.” The officials conferred briefly before awarding the winning goal. “I got close to the ref and asked him and he said, ‘Yeah, it went in.’ Then we all started to celebrate.”
Coach Al Haddad’s top-seeded Trojans survived Emmaus 1-0, as the powerful Parkland program secured its unprecedented eighth straight conference crown. Gougoustamos’ goal, off an assist from Segal Wellington, came with 80 seconds remaining in overtime in the EPC final at Allentown’s J. Birney Crum Stadium.
Parkland (21-0) was on the attack from start to finish against an Emmaus squad playing without its star, senior Madison Woodward, who was out with an apparent ankle injury. Minus its most dynamic player, Green Hornets coach Sarah Oswald opted for an extremely defensive-oriented approach.
It worked in keeping the Trojans off the scoreboard. Emmaus, however, created few scoring chances. Parkland fired off five shots on goal in the game compared to only one for the Hornets. Parkland took 12 corners; Emmaus one.
“When we heard Maddi was injured,” Haddad said, “we planned for the fact that they were going to have a very low line of defense. They’re one of the top defenses in the conference normally and now they’re behind the ball all the time. It made things very difficult.
“I don’t think we did a good job capitalizing on the opportunities we created and we did not play very good corners, which has been a strong point.”
Another one of the EPC’s top players, Parkland senior captain Catherine Crampton, admitted the Trojans were frustrated at times.
“It was frustrating,” Crampton said, “but I think we knew we had it under control. We really had to stay focused.”
Parkland’s “golden goal” was a pretty one.
Wellington, a senior, raced down the right sideline and slotted a pass across to Gougoustamos, a junior who tallied her team-high 17th of the season.
“It was a quality strike,” Haddad said. “I saw the players’ reactions immediately, even their goalkeeper’s [Ashley Stine], and that told me it went in.”
“I knew Segal would beat her defender,” Gougoustamos said, “and I had a lot of time when she put it on my foot. I took my time and placed it in the corner. I think it was relief. We played 90-plus and we were pushing hard.”
The Trojans will enter the six-team District 11 Class 4A tournament, which begins on Wednesday, with a perfect record and as the No. 1 seed.
Parkland has now won all eight EPC girls soccer titles since the conference formed in 2014. (There was no conference final in 2020 due to COVID.)
“It’s something we strive for every year,” said Crampton, an EPC all star first-team selection. “We know we’re the only team to win it for eight years and we know everyone is out to take it from us every year.”
Emmaus’ Oswald was pleased with her team’s performance.
The Green Hornets lost 1-0 to Parkland in the EPC regular-season finale on Oct. 12. The goal now for Emmaus is to see Parkland again in the district final. Emmaus will be seeded second for the 4A tournament.
“We knew we had to throw something completely different at them, trying to get them on their heels,” Oswald said. “Absolutely, PKs was a thought there. Any time you can get to a situation where you’re in a shootout it’s anybody’s game at that point. It was very obvious they had us on our heels a ton and we were under a lot of pressure. But we were able to keep them off the scoreboard for almost 95 minutes.”