No. 5 Mustangs repeat as UCBAC Champs

Since the creation of the Upper Chesapeake Bay Athletic Conference in 2004, just two teams have earned the right to call them selves the conference’s girls’ soccer champions.

For the first three years, it was the C. Milton Wright Mustangs who were on top of the UCBAC, but the Fallston Cougars fought to capture back-to-back titles in 2007 and 2008.  And with their title-win last year, the No. 5 Mustangs have once again won back-to-back crowns, beating the Patterson Mill Huskies, Tuesday, with a 7-1 victory at Bel Air High School.

“We really wanted to come out with another championship win,” senior captain Megan Will said.  “We have been working from August all the way here, and we came back and got it.”

It was less than a week ago that the Mustangs (13-1-1, 6-0) and Huskies(7-7, 7-0) met in a regular season contest in which C. Milton emerged with a 6-0 win, and the UCBAC champs came out just as strong, Tuesday, sprinting to a 4-0 halftime lead.

Notching two goals in the first half, sophomore Megan Frailer scored in the fifth and 15th minutes of the game, scoring beside teammates senior Kellie McKinney and freshman Alyssa Austen for a 4-0 lead.

“I thought we did what we needed to do,” Mustang head coach paul Austin explained.  “We played them last week, and we knew we couldn’t let them get into the game in the first 20 minutes, so we came out scoring two goals right away and that was our key.”

The ‘Stangs continued the scoring raid with another goal in the first four minutes of the second half off the foot of senior Kathryn Brown, and added another goal 10 minutes later by junior Kelly Kappus to put the Huskies in a 6-0 deficit.

But then, doing what the team had failed to do just six days prior, Patterson Mill junior Sammi Galbraith netted the Huskies’ lone goal of the game, which was later answered by McKinney again for her second goal of the game and the 7-1 win.

“We just connected passes a lot and we just had a lot of people that were getting open and going to the right places,” said the two-goal Frailer.

Going a perfect 7-0 en route to their Susquehanna Division Title, the Patterson Mill Huskies will try and improve on their last playoff showing, falling one game short of a 1A North Regional title game with a 3-2 overtime loss to 2009 1A state finalist Harford Tech.

“We have 10 seniors, so we have a lot of experience,” Husky head coach Mike Parker said.  “We got a pretty good draw, and we haven’t played anybody, so we are trying to match up and see who has played who.

“This game, even though we lost 7-1, we showed we had opportunities, and I told [our team] before the game that we needed to use this to prepare for the playoffs.  So even though it was a loss, I think it is good for us.”

Regardless of what they do in the post-season, the Huskies will take their 2011 soccer ambitions to the UCBAC’s Chesapeake Division, a move that Parker says will be good for the program.

“We did pretty well in the Susquehanna, going 7-0 in our division, but we struggled against the Chesapeake teams,” Parker said.  “They have a lot of good teams up there, and we are excited to be moving up.”

C. Milton, too, will be looking to improve on their 2009 playoff showing, as they fell victim to Hereford in the 3A North regional semifinals, 2-0.

“Last year, we lost in the [second] game,” senior captain Amy Marks explained, “so we just need to come out hard and not lose our [second] game like we did last year.”

Patterson Mill’s first round game will be at home against Catoctin, while the Mustangs will host the winner of Parkville and Western.

“Our next goal is to win the region,” Austin said.  “We knew we would have to go through Hereford, Catonsville and or North Harford, so we know they are the favorites.  But we can’t overlook anybody.  It is a three game tournament, and we want to be the ones who get out.”

(click on the related videos tab at the top of the page to see video highlights and interviews)