RADFORD- The George Mason girls’ soccer team clearly showed that it was the best in the state by running away with a 7-1 victory over Goochland in the Group A state championship game on Saturday.

  Goochland knew that it was in for a challenge when they saw that their championship game opponent would be the Mustangs of George Mason. Just a week earlier, the Lady Bulldogs traveled to George Mason’s home field for the regional final and lost convincingly, 11-0 that could have easily intimidated them. In that game, the two Bulldogs’ keepers stood on a virtually firing line at the net and combined for 32 saves. Furthermore, Goochland also felt it was at a disadvantage on George Mason’s artificial surface field.

  Therefore, the Bulldogs knew they had their work cut out for them in the state championship rematch but they were ready for the challenge.

  “I knew it would be a hard game but I knew it would be a different situation on a normal field than the turf field,” said senior Brandi Fleming. “I was hoping for a closer game than this. I still feel like we worked really hard and we did the best that we could.”

  George Mason jumped out to an early lead when freshman Violet Miller took a breakout and scored off the hands of Goochland keeper Jessica Richardson.

  Ten minutes later, it was Miller once again who put George Mason ahead 2-0. On the day, Miller scored four goals for the Mustang, three in the first half.

  At the break, George Mason led 4-0, had 13 shots on goal and seven corner kicks. In comparison, Goochland had one of each.

  But the determined group of Goochland girls were not going to go down without a fight. “At halftime we were relentless,” said senior Kelsie Bowles. “We weren’t going to give up. We weren’t going to let the same thing happen this game that happened last game. We weren’t going to let it get that far.”

  Yet, no matter how hard the played, Goochland could do little to stop the Mustangs’ stampede. Shortly into the second half, Miller scored her fourth goal of the day to give George Mason a 5-0 lead.

  “They’re a buzz-saw,” was the only way Goochland head coach Tom Reid could describe George Mason.

  The lead had blossomed to 6-0 before the Lady Bulldogs finally had something to cheer about. With 15 minutes to play, freshman Tesia Werness took an assist from Andrea Odemark and sent a header into the goal to put Goochland on the scoreboard and avoid a shutout.

  George Mason added a goal by Mayssa Chehata at the five minute mark to create the final margin.

  “Yeah, they’re a good team, I have to give it to them,” Fleming said. “I can’t say that it was an unfair game or anything. They’re a good team.”

  Though they lost the title game, the Lady Bulldogs can still loudly proclaim that they are the number two team in the sate, after having never made it past the opening round of regionals before.  Furthermore, their accomplishments have laid the foundation for a bright future for girls’ soccer at Goochland.

  “They’ve come a long ways in the past few years,” Reid said. “Hopefully this will assist in getting girls interested too and get other people interested, which is important.”
 
  George Mason—————4   3 7
  Goochland———————0 1 1