STUARTS DRAFT - Rissa Martin has spent a lot of her time this season outside of team practices working on the art of the penalty kick.
So as soon as the foul was called Monday afternoon — Martin's Stuarts Draft teammate Lyndsay Harris was knocked down from behind by a Central Woodstock player in the final seconds of the fourth overtime — Martin looked to her coach, who was already looking at the senior.
"She knows," Draft coach Bridget Lane said. "She practices them. She works her butt off for them. She'll come up to the game field on a weekend and practice just PKs."
That work paid off in a big way Monday at the end of the Region 2B girls soccer quarterfinal match. After going scoreless through regulation and three overtimes, Draft and Central were about to go to a penalty kick shootout to decide the outcome.
But as the clock went to zero in the fourth overtime, the referee called a foul on the Central player who knocked Harris to the ground. Lane gave a lot of credit to Harris for making the play happen.
"If Lyndsay hadn't gone for that and worked for that, it never would have happened," Lane said. "We really owe that to her because she's the one who put herself in that situation."
It wasn't a popular call with the fans from Woodstock, but it appeared to be the correct call.
"It's a tough job to be a ref, it really is," Lane said. "Like, I don't want to do it."
When the foul was called, Martin knew what she had to do.
"I felt confident about it," she said. "But that goalie was giving us a hard time the whole game so I wasn't really sure what to expect."
Martin put the ball in the back of the net, just right of center and past a diving Central keeper.
As Emma Gallaugher, Draft's keeper, stood watching, she knew the shootout was looming. She had been counting down the entire fourth overtime period — five minutes to PKs, four minutes to PKs. That shootout to decide the winner is not a position any goalkeeper likes to face.
As it turned out, a shootout was not necessary.
Martin's kick accounted for the final score of the game, a 1-0 victory for Draft.
"You've got to have hope, I guess, for your team," she said. "Last week we scored with 30 seconds left against Stonewall. So it's round two of literally scoring in the last 30 seconds of the game."
On Friday, Draft beat Stonewall in the Shenandoah District championship 2-1, scoring with 31 seconds remaining in regulation to get the win. That was big, but this was bigger. No matter what happened Friday, Draft was going into regionals. On Monday, a loss meant the end of the team's season.
Now Draft is a win away from a repeat trip to the state tournament. Draft played in the Group 2A state championship game last year, falling to George Mason.
The Cougars will host Clarke County Wednesday in the Region 2B semifinals with that state berth on the line. Clarke beat Wilson Memorial 4-2 Monday.
"It's really exciting," Martin said. "We want states and I think we've worked for it a ton this season. And I think we have the team to do it and actually win this year."