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Niceville, Pace advance to district final (SLIDESHOW)
NAVARRE – The Niceville and Pace girls’ soccer teams certainly played up to their seeding Wednesday night, showing out in their respec-tive District 1-4A semifinal matches at Navarre and punching their tickets to Friday night’s final.
The top-seeded Eagles (15-3-2) knocked off No. 4 Navarre (7-10-7) 2-0 to seal their playoff bid and stay in the running for the district title.
PHOTOS:
“We really had a sort of coming together with some of these games we’ve had (lately) and we’ve had a chance to refocus,” Niceville coach Michael Denton said.
“This week we showed some good composure and I think that’s made a difference.”
Samantha Ditmar spearheaded Niceville’s offensive attack with a solid performance.
She assisted on a header to Miranda O’Neil for what proved to be the game-winning goal in the 21st minute.
Then, in the 31st, she beat a Navarre defender and goalkeeper to the ball, took a hard hit, but managed to slide the ball into the goal to give the Eagles their second and final goal of the night.
“I’m excited, I thought it was great,” Ditmar said. “I thought the team came out and played really well and that was great because we ha-ven’t been playing our best, but we came out and showed what we really have and it paid off for us.”
No. 3-seeded Fort Walton Beach (15-2-1) dropped the first game of the night to second-seeded Pace, falling 3-0.
The Vikings fell into an early deficit as Pace scored in the game’s opening minutes off a goal from Mary Kathryn Taylor.
Taylor stretched the Pace lead to 2-0 in the 21st minute on a beautiful goal from the right side that curved into the backside corner of the net at what looked like an impossible angle.
“They got that early goal, then that second goal,” Fort Walton Beach coach Bill Wilkins said. “That was a very hard angle to make that shot. She’s a big time player; she scores a lot of goals.
Pace (17-3) coach Joey Goodwin was pleased with his team’s execution on the defensive end.
“Their two central midfielders are unbelievable, and anytime their central midfielders got the ball we wanted to make sure that we put pressure on them and didn’t let them just pick us apart.”
Friday night’s final is at 7 p.m.
Follow Pat Flynn on Twitter: @PatFnwfdn
