by Pat O'Malley
patomalleysports@aol.com
Some coaches believe in omens and when your cooler full of gatorade spills twice before a big game and is knocked over first by a player and then, the coach, you've got to be thinking uh-oh, bad omen. Not River Hill High's girls' soccer coach Brian Song.
No omens, superstitions nor opposing teams are about to stand in the way of his high powered Hawks as they seek a third consecutive state championship. The No. 4 Hawks advanced to the Class 2A state finals, routing Parkside of Wicomico County, 3-0, in a state semifinal Saturday night at North County's William P. Wentworth Stadium.
The Hawks (15-1-1) jumped on the previously unbeaten Rams (15-1-1) scoring all of their goals in the first half and cruised to their second straight 2A final where they will have a rematch with No. 5 Eastern Tech (14-1-1) this weekend at UMBC. River Hill, which slipped by Eastern Tech, 2-1 in the waning seconds of the second overtime in last year's 2A title game, won a Class 3A state crown in 2006.
Watching Eastern Tech's win 3-1 in a shootout over North Hagerstown in the first state semifinal Saturday evenin, one of the Hawks upset a blue cooler of Gatorade bottles and coach Song duplicated the feat by scattering the bottles down on the field.
"No, we did it twice,'' said a laughing Song. "One of my girls did it up there (in the stands) and then, I did it down here [on the track behind the team bench]. I said, like 'Oh God, who's going to do it a third time.'''
Instead of a third spillage, the Hawks scored three goals in the first half to put the Rams away early. All the goals were scored by River Hill seniors.
Amy Song, the coach's daughter and one of five seniors on the team, launched her patented throw-in that is as good as any girl has in the Baltimore area, to set up the Hawks' first goal by fellow senior Semret Seyoum. Seyoum's tally came in the first five minutes and was followed 12 minutes later by a third senior Kathryn Rodgers from Song.
"We wanted to set the tone early and I felt good about it,'' said Seyuom. "We wanted to score early and keep building from it.''
Ditto from Song whose strong, second throw-in set it up for Rodgers.
"Originally my throw-in was pretty good for my age and my dad worked with me to make my back and shoulder muscles stronger,'' said Amy Song. "We played well tonight, came out strong and came out to win. We wanted to put early goals in and put pressure on them. And we wanted to put other teammates on the field as well.''
Senior Brittany Yancey bombed one in from about 35 yards out on a free kick to cap the Hawks' scoring with about five and a half minutes remaining in the first half.
"I asked the girls for a goal in the first five minutes to see how they reacted to it,'' said coach Song, whose Hawks have outscored their four playoff foes,12-2, with Patuxent the only team to score against them. The Hawks defeated Patuxent, 3-2 in the 2A South Region finals Monday evening. "And if they are going to come back and challenge you on 50-50 balls, then we've got ourselves a game. But if they are going to give you those 50-50 balls, you have them.
Brittany Yancey is the fastest on our team with the ball on her feet, so I asked her to turn it so we would have the ball coming across and two of the three goals came from Amy's throw-ins.''
As for an encore with Eastern Tech in the state final?
"They're going to have a little more drive and determination because they lost last year, '' said coach Song, whose team's only loss this season was to No. 16 Wilde Lake (2-1) in the Howard County championship game, and tied unranked Atholton (2-2) in regular season. "Everybody has been thinking rematch and it's a good way for both team's seniors to go out.
By the same token, we have both had some change of personnel. We are slowly peaking at the right time and so are they. We saw their game and our girls said they are going to be tough.''
The players are looking forward to the rematch.
"I think it's going to be a great game with both teams coming out really strong, Eastern Tech especially because we beat them last year,'' said Amy Strong.
"Our team is solid and as long as we come in playing our best, as long as we give it our all, I don't think anybody can really compete with us,'' said Seyoum. "It's not about our competitor. It's about us mentally, our game. We want another championship ring and as seniors, we want to end it off well.''
Class 2A state girls' soccer semifinals
at North County
River Hill 3, Parkside 0
Parkside 0 0-0
River Hill 3 0-3
GOALS: River Hill-Seyoum, Rodgers, Yancey. ASSISTS: River Hill-Song. SAVES: Parkside-Salisbury 5; River Hill-Hudson 4.
