In fourth soccer finals trip in six years, Clovis North girls win title. Here’s how it happened
Bella Taglione figured at some point fate would smile on the Clovis North girls soccer team.
It happened Saturday afternoon as the Broncos were staring at anything-can-happen sudden death in the Central Section Division I championship game.
Taglione took a pass toward the end of the second overtime and the ball deflected off an opposing player and sailed to the top-left corner of the goal to give the top-seeded Broncos a 1-0 victory over Clovis.
“We’re Valley champs,” Taglione said. “This is my third Valley championship game, and it’s even sweeter this year – my senior year.”
It is the Broncos’ first section title since 2012 – and the third title in school history.
Clovis North had lost in the section finals three of the previous five years, including last year’s 2-1 defeat to San Luis Obispo when the Broncos were also the D-I top seed.
Clovis North (22-1-2) avenged its lone loss this season, 4-1 to Clovis (17-7-5) in the second round of Tri-River Athletic Conference play. Still, Clovis North finished two games ahead of Clovis in the tough TRAC.
Broncos coach Nick Pappanduros preached “focus” to his team all season.
“Just play our game and work hard,” he said. “We used that as motivation from last year. We just wanted to make sure we were getting better every game. We did that, and these girls were resilient.
“The last time we played (Clovis) we didn’t have our goalie and we didn’t have another starter, and that was our only loss. We wanted this game so much more today.”
Taglione said, “God blessed this team and He made it such an intense game.”
“Our team pushed hard for 100 minutes. I said one time, we’re going to win TRAC, we’re going to win Valleys, now we’re celebrating tonight going through and pushing through and we’re going to win state.”
The California Interscholastic Federation regional soccer brackets will be announced on Sunday.
This story was originally published February 22, 2020 at 6:33 PM.
