THUNDER BAY – Erica Vidotto was determined to help her team win the 2017 high school girls soccer championship.
But when the game started on Thursday afternoon, the St. Ignatius Falcons star midfielder wasn’t sure she’d get the chance.
The 16-year-old was somewhere over Lake Superior, on her way back to Thunder Bay from a family visit to Toronto. It took a mad dash through the airport – shoving her brother politely aside along the way – and some timely green lights, but Vidotto managed to get to the field minutes into the second half.
Her impact was almost immediate.
With the Falcons up 1-0 after Saige Niemi had found the back of the net in the 38th minute, a dozen minutes later Vidotto took control of the ball in the midfield area and fired a pinpoint pass to Olivia Walsh up the middle. Walsh, a member of Ontario’s under-16 team, blasted a shot at Westgate Tigers keeper Alexis Anderson, who couldn’t hang on.
Julianna Servello was ready to pounce, punching it home for a 2-0 St. Ignatius lead. Then, with about three minutes to go, Vidotto curled a high, hard shot from about 21 yards out, the ball sailing just under the crossbar.
The goal sealed a 3-0 win and gave the Falcons a second straight championship, the school’s 12th girls soccer title in 19 seasons.
Still, Vidotto brushed aside the suggestion she’d made the difference on the pitch.
“I wouldn’t say things changed,” she said of her late arrival. “By the second half we got that first goal and things just changed from there. We had a lot of energy and then we got two more and here we are. We’re going to OFSAA.”
Walsh, just 14 and in her first year with the team, said it’s been the goal all year long.
“I’m really excited to do my first year at OFSAA with this group of girls,” Walsh said, adding anything short of a title would have been a disappointment for the Falcons, who went undefeated in 2017, winning all five regular-season games to top the Superior Secondary School Athletics Association standings.
“I felt like we really wanted it, we really wanted to win this game.”
The Tigers, fourth-place finishers this year who hadn't won a girls title in 20 years, found chances few and far between against the overpowering Falcons, who controlled the play for the vast majority of the game.
The Tigers Merritt Morine had the best chance in the opening half, but fired an open shot well over the net of St. Ignatius goalie Taylor Gombola.
Servello is now 2-for-2 through her sophomore year at St. Ignatius.
Not bad, she said.
“It feels good to win it two years in a row, for sure,” she said.
