After narrowly beating No. 23 Highland 1-0 in the first round of the postseason, it was unclear if the Maple Mountain Golden Eagles’ playoff run would go much further.
Round by round though, Maple Mountain edged out its opponent by a single goal and kept winning, despite entering the state tournament as the No. 10 seed.
But Maple Mountain faced a new challenge in the 5A championship game Friday. For the first time in its season, Maple Mountain was headed to a shootout, and for its first time it had to face Bountiful, which had won two straight shootouts to qualify for the finals.
Maple Mountain took control, beat Bountiful 4-2 in the shootout and took the 5A crown for the first time since 2017.
“We’ve gone to overtime I think 5-6 times and we have never had to go to PKs until tonight,” said Maple Mountain head coach Clif Swain. “We practiced them the last three or four weeks. We were practicing almost every day.
“We knew that (Bountiful) had performed extremely well (in shootouts) and we were not worried because we have great PK takers and an amazing keeper, but at the same time, you never know. PKs are as much luck as they are anything else.”
Before the shootout, it was Maple Mountain which took the lead in the 18th minute with a goal from Kesley Jewkes.
Bountiful struggled to even out the score, but finally found a goal in the second half on a penalty kick from Belle Sorensen.
The teams remained tied, and once again Bountiful was headed to a shootout to decide the 5A championship.
Unfortunately for Bountiful, Maple Mountain’s Anya Gulley was in the goal.
“Ever since we started the playoffs, (Gulley) has had big save after big save,” said Swain. ”When it came down it to PKs everyone said ‘Oh, we have Anya, we have Anya, she’ll get it.’ She does a great job of anticipating and reading the field.”
Gulley saved the first Bountiful shot, giving her team an early lead. Gulley once again came to the rescue with another save to help secure the 4-2 shootout win and the 5A championship.
“It’s so surreal. I can’t even believe it,” Gulley said. “I just read them, I read their hips right before and I saved it. I just hoped for the best. I was really happy and relieved because it’s been a long, hard-fought game for us.
“The first part of the season was a struggle and honestly, I never thought we could make it this far. But as we went into the state tournament, we just played as a team and we really worked and did our best to get here.”
It was a big win for the young Maple Mountain program, which Swain said graduated 11 seniors last year.
“We lost 11 seniors last year. Eight or nine of them were starters,” said Swain. “We knew we were coming back with a young squad. It just took us a little bit to click and to get it going but they put it together.
“It’s incredible. It’s a feeling like no other. You work so hard to give the girls the opportunity to get on the field and then they come here and they win it. We’re on the sideline worrying, but they’re the ones doing all the work and it’s amazing to see them do that.”