Thunder roll into SOSSA
The Blessed Trinity Thunder rallied to defeat the Notre Dame Fighting Irish 3-2 to capture the Niagara Catholic Athletic Association senior girls AAA Zone 3 soccer championship.
The Thunder now advance to the Southern Ontario Secondary Schools Association (SOSSA) AAA playdowns Thursday at Southward Park in Grimsby where they play Westmount from Hamilton in one semifinal while A.N. Myer and West Niagara square off in the other. The two winners then meet for the right to advance to OFSAA (Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations).
Vanessa Testa scored the winner with about two minutes to play to break a 2-2 deadlock.
“We had a free kick I didn’t think was very threatening,” BT coach Joe Pagnotta said. “It was about 30 yards out. She went for a shot and somehow hit top shelf.”
Pagnotta said the Thunder were fortunate to move on.
“We have a lot more to offer than we showed. I think the girls played extremely nervous,” he said. “Last year we hosted OFSAA so I thought we played a little more loose when there was no pressure on them. Obviously, you can’t lose so they were a little uptight throughout the game. I thought they would get out of that after the first 10-15 minutes of the game but they just had that edge on them throughout the game and couldn’t get out of it.”
Chiara Nicolazzo scored two goals for the Thunder to give them a 2-1 lead at the half. The Irish tied the game with about 10 minutes remaining in dramatic fashion on a free kick from Maya Belcastro about 20 yards that hit the top corner of the net. Belcastro also scored in the first half.
“It was a world-class shot,” Pagnotta said.
Pagnotta feels the Thunder have more to show and will need to up their game at OFSSA.
“No disrespect to ND, I thought they were a very good side and they proved it,” he said. “When we played them during the year it was probably the best calibre of soccer I’ve ever seen my girls play in the history of coaching the team. We’re capable of that, we just didn’t show that.
“It was an evenly played game. It could have gone either way.”
Pagnotta is hopeful the game will be a good learning lesson.
“It was stressful but I told the girls after adversity is not a bad thing,” he said. “We got the W. Bend but don’t break. It doesn’t matter how good you think you are, no one is handing you anything. You still have to play the game.”
