DelawareSports.com
6/11/00
Delaware Sports Game of the Week
The State Girl's Soccer Championship
by Marshan Manlove - editor
At 7:00 it was over to Newark High to watch Tom DeMatteis become the only coach to take a boy's and a girl's soccer team all the way to the topo one minute after Ashley Dilworth blasted a 30 yard game winning goal in a 3-2 win over A.I. duPont.
The Spartans became the first Delaware team to beat A.I., the four-time defending state champions, since 1996.
Just four minutes into the game, the Tigers were on a pace to score 80 goals in the game after Kristin Goldrick and Kristin Hanna scored for A.I.
DeMatteis said, "I would have bet my house that we were more prepared than that coming into this game."
The Spartans settled down and bear the 20 minute mark Dilworth deflected a Michelle Huynh-Ba pass off the crossbar for their first goal of the game.
Two-thirds of the way through the second half, Dilworth had a nasty collision with the Tiger's Danielle Nourie and laid face down on the turf. DeMatteis said, "When I got to her she was out (cold), but just as I said to the trainer she was out, she recovered."
As the trainers were attending to Dilworth, co-captain Megan O'Donnell pulled her team aside and forcefully reminded her team that they weren't going to leave that field without the number one trophy. Dilworth shook off the stars floating around her head and returned to action on the next whistle.
With less than eight minutes to go, sophomore Shannon Bradbury took a Spartan corner kick and found Huynh-Ba's head near the front of the goal. Huynh-Ba directed the pass in for the game tying goal, and it appeared as if the championship was going into overtime as it did last year between these same two teams.
With about a minute to go, the Tiger's Katie Mazzio electrified her fans when she blasted a goal. But the play was blown offsides, and overtime was on its way again.
The clearing pass down the right wing was chased down by Dilworth and Kristin Hanna. But Hanna slipped and fell leaving Dilworth wide open and all along on goal. From 30 yards away her powerful right leg connected with the leather sphere and sent it rocketing off the crossbar and down over the goal line to cause bedlam on the other side of the bleachers.
Dilworth didn't exactly remember scoring the goal partially because of the excitement and partially because of the blow to her head. She did remember who she was and what her team's goal was though. "We were not coming off that field without that trophy. We said it coming in, and we said on the field. Now we have it."
Huynh-Ba, a sophomore, said, "It took some time to get into this game, but we did it and we reached for our goal."