5A high school soccer: Hawks make it four championships in a row

SANDY — If Alta soccer coach Lee Mitchell is right, there is almost no way the Hawks can win another state title.

"They each seem to get harder and harder," Mitchell said after Alta claimed its fourth consecutive 5A championship with a dramatic win over Davis, 6-5 in a shootout that went seven players long. "Each one is special and different, but you really remember the last one the most, so this one means the most right now."

It is rare the drama and action live up to the expectations for a highly anticipated title game. But this one did.

The first 80 minutes were not enough to decide a winner. The next 20 minutes of golden-goal overtime didn't get it done, either. It wasn't until Alta goalkeeper Tashia Long dived to her left and saved the penalty kick of the Darts' seventh shooter that the Hawks could celebrate.

"I just tried to focus in on what I needed to do," said Long. "I kind of had a gut feeling which way she was going to go, and I saw a little bit that she was hinting at going that way. I just tried to do what I have been doing for a long time playing in the goal, and I got it."

Besides Long, there were plenty of heroes from both sides in what may go down as one of the finest championship games ever.

Senior defender Ashley May had a hand in all three of the Hawks' goals in regulation. She sent in corner kicks on Alta's first two scores that were headed home by Rebekah Wooden — the opening tally came in the third minute, and the second was in the 43rd as each of the scores put Alta up a goal. She also scored a go-ahead goal in the 64th minute on a free kick from 35 yards out.

"I was aiming for that corner and just thought if I put it there, it had a chance," said May of her rocket to the upper-right corner of the net. "After I hit it, I thought it was going in."

Each time May and Alta scored, however, Davis had an answer. In the 25th minute, midfielder Sammi Swan tied the game at 1-1 with a brilliant 30-yard shot. The 56th minute saw Camille Ostler get on the end of a free kick to the box from Alexi Dunn and head it in for an equalizer at 2-2. And in the most dramatic of fashions, Kenzie Harrison scored an equalizer at the 82-plus minute of stoppage time to send the game to overtime.

"We just got together and said, 'Let's go do this,' " said May of trying to regroup after being just seconds away from claiming a championship before having to go to overtime. "We have been working so hard all year. We wanted to go do it for everybody on the team, for those that tore their ACL in the second game, or for everybody that has been with us all season. We wanted to do it for them."