High school girls soccer: Snow Canyon’s shootout excellence gifts it 4A state championship

While most teams prefer to get a leg up in regulation and win the old fashioned way, Snow Canyon doesn’t mind grinding it out and forcing teams to beat them in shootouts.

For the Warriors’ seniors, they’ve now won 10 consecutive games via overtime or shootouts in their high school career after their 5-4 shootout win over Ridgeline in Friday’s 4A state championship.

“Every time we go to overtime or penalties we win,” said Snow Canyon head coach Connor Brown. “We have three girls who played in the state championship as freshmen three years ago, and so (its) just the confidence.

“I just said to them, and we always say this when we go into overtime, ‘I’m not going to change it just because it’s a big event. We don’t lose in overtime.’ So, just instilling that confidence in them, knowing we can be resilient and we can keep pushing.”

Before any extra time was played, it was an incredibly back-and-forth championship game.

Snow Canyon owned the first half with Lottie Smith in particular being the driving force. Smith scored two first-half goals to give her team a 2-1 halftime lead. Ridgeline’s Melanie Smith scored on a beautiful header to keep her team within striking distance.

“(Smith’s) been our main goal scorer by a distance this season,” Brown said. “She’s put the team on her back in that sense, and just trusted the rest of her teammates to do their job. She does her job and her finishing was top notch today.”

The second half was a different story.

Ridgeline dominated the early minutes of the second half as it scored twice in the first 20 minutes with goals from Lily Hunsaker and Sierra Dean. The RiverHawks often got more mileage out of their possessions, and even a one-goal lead seemed significant for Snow Canyon to overcome.

Hope, and a little luck, came for the Warriors as it found an equalizer on an own goal from Ridgeline. It came on a free kick from Veronica Weston, who placed a dangerous ball near the goal, but a RiverHawk defender got an unfortunate touch on it into the back of the net.

For a team as good as Snow Canyon, even a single mistake can spell disaster.

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After the opening goals from Smith, she was marked the entire half and the offense struggled to get her a solid shot. The Warriors knew it was OK as long as it could grind it out to extra time.

“They found me with the ball, I did what I needed to do as a striker, get two goals to help my team,” Smith said. “Second half is a little bit harder, but I trusted my team and here we are.”

As both overtime periods expired and a shootout was eminent, nothing but confidence radiated from Snow Canyon.

It had good reason to, even despite its impressive shootout record. Snow Canyon was fresh off a 5-3 shootout win over Region 9 foe Desert Hills in the 4A semifinal.

It also helps that Warriors goalkeeper Tori Martin knows that with how consistent her team is, making even one save can be the difference.

That’s exactly what happened Friday. Martin made a single big save on Ridgeline’s third shot, and that’s all Snow Canyon needed.

All five of the Warriors’ players stepped up and found the back of the net to win their first state championship since 2018.

“We said, ‘Tori’s going to do her job. Your job is to put the ball on frame. And if you put the ball on frame and you execute, Tori will take care of us.’ We put it in her hands and we trusted her and she made it happen,” Brown said.

Martin is now four of four in shootouts this season.

“It’s nothing new for me” Martin said. “I was joking with my teammates, that was my fourth. I’m four for four this season, and I’m going to go to Wendy’s to get a four-for-four meal.”