A rematch of last year’s Class A DII state championship game played out in this year’s state semifinals at Christian Heritage School on Friday night.
After celebrating a state title after a win against Milledgeville’s Georgia Military College Prep last season, the Lions instead saw GMC move on to reach this year’s championship game.
A flurry of goals early in the second half led GMC Prep past Christian Heritage 4-2 Friday night. The Bulldogs advance to the Class A DII state championship Tuesday in Macon, while the Lions fall one step shy of returning to play for another title.
In Tuesday’s quarterfinal win over Echols County, Christian Heritage didn’t score a goal in regulation, eventually scoring in overtime and then winning on penalty kicks.
On Friday, the first goal came much more quickly.
Jose Ojeda broke free for a goal less than four minutes into Friday’s state semifinal game, putting the ball in the net with 36:22 left in the first half and energizing a fired-up Lions team from nearly the start.
Christian Heritage rode that momentum to a few more early chances, but, as the first half wore on, GMC began to assert control in the possession battle.
An open shot by GMC’s Bennie Huff went a little high with 17 minutes left, and a Tommy Carty shot hit the post a minute later.
The Lion defense held, though, almost through the entire first half.
With less than a second left in the half, GMC tied the game, flipped the momentum and set off a streak of four goals scored in less than 11 minutes of game time.
A hit-ahead pass found GMC’s Owen McCabe on a dead sprint of a breakaway with time ticking down. He got the ball off just in time, and the ball slid into the net as the halftime buzzer sounded, setting off a celebration from the Bulldog bench and eliciting arguments on the goal’s legitimacy from the Lion sideline.
The call stood, and GMC carried the success over into a flurry in the second half that was unimpeded by a Lion answer.
Carty ran down a lead pass and put the ball softly into the net to give GMC the lead with 36:20 to go.
Christian Heritage tied it when a steal deep on the Bulldogs’ end landed in front of Luis Salinas, who rocketed a shot over the GMC keeper. The game was tied at 2-2 with 31:28, but the tie lasted less than a minute.
Carty scored his second goal with 30:30 left to put the Bulldogs back up 3-2. Exactly a minute later, GMC’s James Portwood had the ball bounce to him after a corner kick and was easily able to knock it home to make the score 4-2.
After five total goals were scored in the final second of the first half and the first 10:30 of the second, the last 29:30 passed without another goal.
GMC, the 2019 and 2021 state champions, advance to play for a third title in six years.
Christian Heritage, despite losing a bevy of seniors from last year’s state championship team, still won a region championship this season and advanced to the state Final Four. No Christian Heritage team had reached the state semis in GHSA play before last season’s title run.