Furious rally late falls short for Hammond in SCISA 3A girls soccer championship

Lou Bezjak
·2 min read

Hammond’s bid for its first girls soccer championship will have to wait another season.

Maggie Rollins scored two goals for Pinewood Prep as they held off a furious Hammond comeback to win the SCISA 3A girls championship, 3-2, on Saturday at Cardinal Newman’s St. Sebastian Stadium.

It is Pinewood’s first title since winning back-to-back crowns in 2014-15 and had some tense moments at the end of the match.

“I think we panicked a little at the end but we held on. But credit Hammond for coming back,” Pinewood coach Gail Osborne said. “But give credit to our team, they worked hard every week and am just super happy for the seniors to go out as champions.”

The Skyhawks end their season at 15-7. Hammond was making its first championship appearance since 2008. The school has won team titles in 22 different sports but none is girls soccer.

The Skyhawks have been building their program up over the last few years since Rafael Marquez was promoted from junior varsity coach a few years ago.. Marquez hopes Saturday’s tile appearance is something the program can build on in the future.

“I am proud and love all of them,” Marquez said. “And thank you for building the foundation and we will be back stronger than ever.”

This was the second meeting of the year between the two schools. Hammond defeated Pinewood, 3-0, in the Viking Cup, but both teams were missing key players.

The two teams were at full strength for the championship and Pinewood scored a pair of goals in the first half to go up 2-0. Rollins scored in the 11th minute and Riley Cox added one in the 29th minute.

Rollins made it 3-0 in the 60th minute before the Skyhawks comeback started.

Brianna Pincaso scored her 12th goal of the season on a penalty kick in the 72nd minute. Katie Wallace Frye added a goal two minutes later to make it 3-2. It was Frye’s seventh goal of the season.

But Hammond couldn’t get a good opportunity in the final six minutes of the match.

“We had trust and faith we were going to come back and we did that,” Marquez said. “We just ran out of time. I am confident if we would have played a full 80 minutes, who knows what would have happened. The hardest thing is if you play the full 80 minutes you never know what is going to happen.”