After two 40-minute halves and two overtime periods, Racquel Davis stepped up to the penalty spot with what felt like the weight of the world on her shoulders. If she scored, the Park City High School girls soccer team would win its first game of the season.
Davis ran up and blasted a shot to the left that hit the back of the net, and a delirious Park City squad celebrated its first victory. Davis turned around and ran toward her teammates, who piled on top of her as the referee’s whistle blew to signal the end of the game.
Davis’ goal in the penalty kick shootout clinched a dramatic, much-needed 2-1 win for Park City after an 0-4 start that featured zero goals for the Miners.
“Highland was a great match for us, I liked our ability matching up against them,” Miners coach Tom Merchant said. “But it was still obviously a challenge right to the end, so I think it’s going to be harder as we go through.”
Park City came out of the gates with plenty of possession and controlled much of the first half. The Miners, much like Saturday’s game against Wasatch, created some good looks but couldn’t find the back of the net. For most of the first half, Park City’s best chance was when Carina Cooke’s shot was punched over the net.
Despite the disparity in possession, Highland put home the game’s first goal when Caroline Gochnour scored on a breakaway. It would have been easy for the Miners to crumble at that point, but they immediately went back to work.
Moments after the goal, Park City’s Shelly Palabrica sliced through a couple of defenders to put herself on a breakaway. She calmly slotted a shot into the bottom-right corner of the net to finally end the Miners’ scoring drought and tie the game at one just before halftime.
“We had posts again this time and a lot of really good attempts before that that didn’t go, so they had some confidence that they could do stuff,” Merchant said. “Getting the final fruition of what you’ve been working on obviously feels good.”
The two teams stayed deadlocked in the second half, though Highland thought it had scored the game-winning goal late in the second half. Park City goalkeeper Emerson Abraham, another Park City player and a Highland attacker came together, and the ball was loose right in front of the empty goal. Highland scored on the play, but the referee called it back.
Still tied at one, the game headed into overtime. Cooke had Park City’s best opportunity in the first overtime period when her curling shot was denied by a diving save. In the second overtime, the chances came fast and furious. At Park City’s attacking end, Palabrica set up an opportunity for Caroline Retzer, only for the shot to be saved. Retzer had another quality chance end with a shot going wide later in the period. On the other end, Abraham was forced into making a clutch save on a breakaway.
With no game-winner in either overtime period, the game came down to penalty kicks.
Park City scored on its first three penalty kicks while Highland scored on its first two only to sky the third one. After the Miners’ fourth shot was saved, Abraham came up with one more clutch save. She dove to her left and caught the shot to keep Highland off the board and set up Davis’ game-winning goal on the next kick.
“It’s like the most satisfying thing in the world,” Abraham said. “Because it’s just like, when you know that you got the ball, it just makes everything feel better, just like a weight off your shoulders.”