Gribben seals sectional for Polar Bears girls soccer in double overtime

Oct. 23—FAIRMONT — The Fairmont Senior Polar Bears and East Fairmont Bees girls took their sectional championship game beyond regulations, past the first overtime, and well into the second before they could decide a winner.

Tied 1-1 by the end of 80 minutes, it took a Kate Gribben breakaway game-winning goal with 5:33 to play in double overtime for the Polar Bears to leave East-West Stadium as winners of Saturday's Class-A/AA Region 1 Section 2 Championship.

"We knew in the second halftime that we had to come out and hit them fast and score," Gribben said. "It was just a team mentality, we were all pumped up and ready to make it happen. It was pretty much a whole team effort. We pushed through it and we scored that goal together.

"It wasn't just me, it was the whole team."

While the ultimate ending of the sectional final came in bombastic fashion, for most of Saturday, neither team could generate too many chances on offense, the ball spending plenty of time pin-balling back and forth in the midfield.

Saturday's grinding game was between two battered teams, with injuries coming into the game and injuries popping up during the game hampering East Fairmont and Fairmont Senior.

"They wanted to gut it out," Fairmont Senior head coach Jeff King said. "We've played a lot of games this week, it's coming to the end of the season and we're banged up.

"I know [East] is banged up. Everybody's got injuries — it took us 20 minutes to tape everybody before the game started, and I've still got two sitting on the bench hurt at the end of this."

Yet the first half did see some scoring, with Adaline Cinalli handling a pass from Gribben and arching a shot to the corner of the net to give the Polar Bears a 1-0 lead in the 13th minute.

Cinalli's shot was the first shot on goal by either team to that point. The game did not have a large amount of action as far as shots on goal go, the two teams combined for just seven total cumulatively — Fairmont Senior with five, and East Fairmont with two.

Coming out of halftime, East Fairmont answered back before long. The Bees' Brooklyn Shupe tracked down a cleared ball around midfield, and fought her way through the defense until she had nothing but green grass between her and the keeper — though a Fairmont Senior defender was breathing down her neck.

Even with a defender riding her hip, the freshman Shupe raced down the field, ball in-tow, and made it within feet of her target, as the Polar Bears' keeper opted not to advance out of the confines of the goal. A tap of the left foot was all it took to sneak the shot by the keeper and tie the game 1-1 in the 48th minute.

East did put some pressure on Fairmont Senior in the last minutes of regulation, still tied 1-1. With possession firmly in their favor, East had chances at the goal, but Fairmont Senior's defense survived until the buzzer sounded and the two teams headed to overtime.

"They kind of lost focus towards the end of regulation a little bit," King said. "East had the ball and they were moving it, controlling the flow of things towards the end. We were lucky enough to make it into OT. Once we got into OT they stepped up and gutted it out."

Throughout the first overtime, it was Fairmont Senior who played the part of the aggressor, but couldn't break through the Bees' defense.

As evening began to descend, and the game wore on into a second overtime, Fairmont Senior got a break — Carter King placed a pass right over a pair of East Fairmont defenders, practically into the lap of Kate Gribben, who persisted past her opponents towards the goal, shooting past the forthcoming keeper and converting a game-winning try.

"Kate's breakaway there, Carter sent a perfect ball over the top for Kate, she fought her way through two defenders to end it," King said.

A rematch of last year's sectional which East took, the game was a triumph for the Polar Bears.

"We wanted some vengeance, we really wanted to win this game for sure," Gribben said. "It was definitely an emotional moment when I scored that goal because we all wanted that."

Fairmont Senior will travel to Oak Glen on Thursday.

Reach Nick Henthorn at 304-367-2548, on Twitter @nfhenthorn_135 or by email at nhenthorn@timeswv.com.