Ruden Sports News

Alexa Pino recalled her first home start for the St. Joseph girls soccer team, three years and two months ago. A highly touted freshman, Pino scored and the Cadets won.

It was the beginning of a familiar pattern. Over 100 goals and dozens of matches later, Pino this afternoon played for the last time on the Cadets’ field. Fittingly, she scored a goal and had two beautiful assists. And, most importantly, the Cadets again won, exploding for four second-half goals in a 5-0 Class LL quarterfinal win over Fairfield Warde.

The Cadets (20-1), whose only loss came against New Canaan on penalty kicks in the FCIAC final, are now two wins away from giving the program and their seniors four straight state titles.

“It was a slow first half but we knew what we had to do to put the game away and we executed our game plan very well in the second half,” Pino said. “Obviously it’s important to get the jump right away but sometimes a funny way soccer goes is like this. I’m proud of us today.”

Pino is headed next year to South Carolina. Another of the team’s star attackers, Sara Parker, will continue her career at Xavier. She, too, scored in her final game, kickstarting the Cadets to a 1-0 halftime lead.

“Obviously we’re taking every game one at a time,” Parker said. “For us seniors, there was kind of a lot of emotion playing today, there was a lot of managing that, knowing it was our last game at home. I couldn’t be more proud of everybody. It’s definitely a great win. Getting the goal just really put the icing on the cake for me.”

The FCIAC is guaranteed of having a team in the Class LL final for the fourth straight time and 15th in the last 17 championships: No. 12 Ridgefield defeated fourth-seeded Farmington in overtime, 3-2, tonight and will meet the Cadets in the semifinals.

Unlike a year ago, when the Cadets’ performance matched their laser focus from the first minute of the opening match to the final minute of the state final win over Notre Dame-Fairfield, their performance has been more inconsistent of late. Today’s second half explosion — Julia Nunes, Taryn Czick and Zoe Garces also scored — was reminiscent of St. Joseph’s play most of this season. Coach Jack Nogueira is hopeful the final 40 minutes will jump start a strong finish that leads to a four-peat.

“We got an early goal from Sara but to be honest we didn’t play well in the first half,” Nogueira said. “We had the wind so go figure. In the second half, against the wind and against the sun, we come out and we play our best soccer in a long, long time. It’s the best half we played in quite some time. We just clicked, and once our offense starts playing like that we get goals in bunches.”

The 24th-seeded Mustangs (7-7-5), who will be able to carry the nice souvenirs of a .500 record after a 2-5 start — they opened the season with a 3-0 loss to the St. Joseph — and two state tournament victories, including a first-round upset of town rival Fairfield Ludlowe, into the offseason, tried to pack in their defense and hope they could weather the storm of the Cadets’ pressure.

It worked well in the first half: Parker got some space and momentum and drilled a hard shot into the net in the 23rd minute for a 1-0 lead.

The score stayed that way until the 47th minute. Pino from the left side centered a ball and Nunes one-timed it home.

The Mustangs could no longer afford to focus on defending and the Cadets pounced. In the nicest play of the match, Pino put another pinpoint pass in the air and Czick brilliantly volleyed it into the goal. Pino got her score on a penalty kick and Garces completed a stretch of four goals in just over 18 minutes by drilling a well-placed shot.

“Our goal in the first half, get an early goal, because usually the teams are trying to tie us, pack it, all 11 behind the ball, and if we score one that eliminates the whole game plan,” Pino said. “Sara was able to get one halfway through the first half so that was good for us. And it put the pressure on them a little more and then opened things up, especially in the second half, and we put them away.”