GILBERT — Salpointe Catholic got as close as you can get to putting itself in position for the extremely rare four-peat.
The rainy conditions in Saturday’s Class 4A state semifinal game didn’t help, but the Lancers didn’t make any excuses after a shot off the post ended their season against Flagstaff.
The third-seeded Eagles edged No. 7 Salpointe 3-2 in penalty kicks after a 1-1 draw over 100 minutes at Williams Field High School. Flagstaff plays Catalina Foothills in the Class 4A final on Tuesday back at Williams Field.
“There was great movement from all the players, we connected really well,” said senior Sydney Lenhart. “It was just unfortunate that we couldn’t finish them.”
Salpointe’s Emily Valenzuela hit the right post on the final kick in the shootout to send Flagstaff through. That was after Anissa Fernandez and Maci Bernier kept the Lancers alive by making their kicks and goalkeeper Madison Smith saved Flagstaff’s last two shots.
But Lancers coach Kelly Pierce, who has won a state title with Salpointe as a player and a coach, said the game never should have gotten to the final tiebreaker.
“We hate going to PKs,” Pierce said. “Unfortunately, we’ve had a lot of ties this year (four). We always possess, we always do pretty well. But execution has always been an issue all season and it showed again today.”
Indeed, the Lancers controlled possession all day, had several quality chances and didn’t allow Flagstaff to get any momentum. Salpointe outshot and outplayed Flagstaff throughout but outside of an eighth-minute goal by Lauren Hanus, couldn’t find the net again.
And for Valenzuela, a senior captain for the Lancers who has made several penalty kicks in previous chances, Pierce said, “My heart breaks for her because I know how devastated she is right now. But like I told them, we should have won it in the match, not in PKs. You can’t blame her.”
Junior Sienna Gonzales had numerous chances. The Lancers got her the ball in the middle and on the wings consistently. Twice in the first 10 minutes of the second half, she had shots on goal that went wide. In the 75th minute, she went wide life from close range. Bernier, taking corner kicks for Salpointe on Saturday, curled a shot just a couple of minutes from the end of the second 10-minute overtime period — a shot that Flagstaff keeper Lianna Albert nearly fumbled.
“You can’t use the weather (as an excuse); they played on the same field as us,” Pierce said. “We didn’t finish our opportunities. That’s what it comes down to. I believe we had several 1-on-1s, really close calls, over and over again.”
One of the few chances Flagstaff got was when freshman Keira Robertson knocked a shot from about 12 yards out just over Smith’s head in the 35th minute.
“It goes either way,” Lenhart said. “It depends on who finishes. Flagstaff was a great team. It was great overall. They gave us a battle.”
This year will mark the first time since 2015 that Salpointe isn’t in the state girls championship match. The Lancers had won the last three state titles and were runners-up in 2016.
“We lost 11 seniors, then we had two ACL tears, so really starting fresh it was a rebuilding year,” Pierce said. “It’s super unfortunate that we went out now but at the same time we have to look at the big picture. It’s a young group, a lot of new faces.”
