Sunrise Drops Elite Eight Game to Plantation

20 game unbeaten streak is over

Wellington, Florida (May 6, 2007) -  The u14 girls dropped an important game to their rivals from Plantation 2-0 in State Cup competition. The loss put an end to a 20 game Sunrise unbeaten streak that included championships in the Gator Showcase, the FLUGSA playoffs and the Vulcan Cup. The loss also ended a six game win streak of Sunrise girls teams over Plantation teams. Excluding one lightning shortened game from a few weeks ago, Sunrise had scored in 27 straight games, that also ended today. All of those streaks were nice but the prize the team really wanted, the State Cup, is now beyond reach for this season. For the second year in a row, the team fell just one game short of a trip to the final four.

Sunrise almost struck very early, literally seconds into the game. On the second touch of the game, Melissa Camacho found Haleigh Stremanos  running down the left side of the field, Stremanos sent a nicely placed line drive that was just under the cross bar, but Plantation keeper Julia Kantor went high and knocked the ball over the bar to make the save. That would turn out to be the first of many good plays by the Plantation keeper, who frustrated Sunrise all day.

A few minutes later found Stremanos in the box against Kantor but she came quickly out to cut off the angle and a Stremanos's short range bullet was stopped by the Plantation keeper. Plantation had a good chance at 8 minutes but Sunrise defender Kaitlyn Manning seemed to come out of nowhere to catch the attacker and thwart any chance of a shot. At 24-minutes a Sunrise defender cleared the ball from her defensive end to a Plantation player, who sent it into the box and Plantation converted a 2 v 1 situation into the first goal of the game. That would be only the second shot of the game for Plantation but they made it count. Then in the final 10-seconds of the first half, another Sunrise error led to the second goal. That goal might have been the killer as it gave the Eagles huge momentum going into the second half.

But Sunrise kept playing hard, and Kantor kept making plays to keep Sunrise at bay. With about 15 minutes remaining, Sunrise forward Tatiana Penagus got free and was 1 on 1 versus Kantor, but she came aggressively out to the top of the 18 and did enough to stop the play as Penagus tried to push the ball by her. The game ended the way it started, with another great opportunity for Sunrise that just missed. Penagus had a shot that went just wide.

It was that kind of day for Sunrise. Plantation took advantage of two big chances and Sunrise did not. Sunrise wishes Plantation good luck in the final four.

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