On the back of District 5 player of the year Emma Rogers, the Boyd-Buchanan girls' soccer team downed Arts and Sciences 2-1 in dramatic fashion in the Region 3-A/AA final Thursday night.
The win gave the Lady Bucs program a school record for a single season (15), its first region championship and a state sectional home game Saturday.
"The last 20 minutes was as high-tense and pressured as a game can get," Boyd-Buchanan coach Todd Ledbetter said about his 15-5 team's comeback.
Just after the evening's rain began falling at Boyd-Buchanan, the Lady Patriots (12-7-1) struck first in the 34th minute. Junior Cyndee Stafford took a run to the left corner of the penalty box, shielded her defender, turned and shot a prayer that managed to slip by the goalkeeper.
Despite owning the statistics for possession, shots and corner kicks, Boyd-Buchanan wasn't able to muster an answer against the CSAS defense, or goalkeeper Clara Alsobrooks, for 70 minutes, but then Rogers took control.
After a nice through pass by teammate Emily Hawke, Rogers calmly placed a shot by Alsobrooks to tie the match with just over 10 minutes to play. Less than four minutes later, Rogers got another through ball that she put in the back of the net - just like she did three times during the Lady Bucs' semifinal win against East Ridge.
"I think everybody felt like it was going to come, but it just wasn't happening," Ledbetter said about his team's first goal Thursday. "My halftime talk was to get them to be patient and to not doubt themselves. Their defense was fantastic. But once we got that first one, I could see everyone's confidence just shoot back up."
"Boyd-Buchanan has a lot of options," CSAS coach David Poss said. "We changed some things tonight to be able to hang with them, and they worked for a very long time. But we just lacked the ability to put the game on ice."
In the last three years the Lady Bucs have earned six pieces of first-place hardware - for three regular-season, two district-tournament and now one region title.
"We've been talking all season about the potential of this being a very historic year for the program," Ledbetter said. "At the beginning of the game I talked to them about how much they wanted to put a stamp on their legacy by getting that third title of the season. And tonight they answered that challenge."
CSAS will travel for a sectional.
Contact John Mitchell at sports@timesfreepress.com.