SANDY — Soccer championship games have provided more moments of agony than glory for Juan Diego in recent years.

The Soaring Eagle reached the 3A title game in both 2006 and 2007, only to fall short in heartbreaking fashion each time. Dixie beat them in a shootout to win it all in '06 and Judge Memorial completed a Cinderella run in '07 at the expense of their archrival.

For players who endured those heartbreaks, claiming a 1-0 victory over Morgan on Saturday afternoon at Rio Tinto Stadium felt like the perfect medicine for those past bitter endings.

"It feels amazing," senior midfielder Jenn Flynn said. "It's indescribable. The whole team put all their effort in and we finally got one."

Just as in previous seasons when Juan Diego made it to this point, the Soaring Eagle had an opponent that stayed with them to the final minute.

Morgan came at the Soaring Eagle with a tenacious defense. Juan Diego showed a definite advantage through much of the game in controlling the run of play and creating quality scoring chances down in the Trojans' half of the field.

Still, the Trojans — starting with goalkeeper Mo Freestone — repeatedly made one timely save after another to keep the Soaring Eagle from building any sort of comfortable advantage.

Morgan gave a pretty good indication that this would be the way things would go after grinding out upset victories over Park City and Judge Memorial just to make it to Rio Tinto Stadium. The Soaring Eagle expected nothing less than a tight game for 80 minutes.

"We definitely knew it would be real tough — even just playing them ourselves two times this season," junior midfielder Vicki Shimkus said. "They battled hard the whole game and we knew it would be a fight to the end."

Shimkus helped Juan Diego land what essentially proved to be the winning punch in the 33rd minute. After taking a pass from Jen Turnerdrown, she crossed the ball from deep on the right side of the penalty area in an effort to hook up with Emily Bruder as she streaked toward the goal.

Bruder barely reached the cross from Shimkus as the ball zoomed toward the opposite post and needed just a single touch to tap it home and make it 1-0.

"That definitely was my idea," Shimkus said of hooking up with Bruder in the goalmouth. "At an angle like that, you can't really get a good shot off."

Juan Diego had to survive a few nervous moments down the stretch — culminating in the 76th minute, when Morgan nearly found an equalizer. Kersey Davis crossed the ball into A.J. Bateman perfectly from the right flank, and Bateman unleashed a powerful header. Her shot cleared the crossbar by a matter of an inch or two.