Cumberland, Mt. Hope get it done in semifinals; will battle for girls soccer state crown

PROVIDENCE — There will be a new girls soccer state champion in 2023 and it might very well be Cumberland, the team that dispatched the two-time state champs and has been the best team in the state all season.

But underdog Mt. Hope isn’t going to go away without a fight.

Seeing the Clippers beat North Kingstown, 2-0, in Tuesday’s RIIL Girls Soccer State Tournament semifinals wasn’t a surprise. Cumberland had been snakebit in each of the last two semifinals, but after going undefeated in the regular season, it played with purpose on Tuesday night, ending the Skippers’ two-year run as state champions.

“We came together, we pushed ourselves to beat NK,” said Jenna Gervais, who was a force for the Clippers’ defensive attack on Tuesday. “Every single year, we get to the semis and we just blow it and I feel like this is our year.”

Mt. Hope’s season has gone much differently. The highs have been high, the lows have been low, but the Huskies haven’t stopped working hard. Powered by freshman talent and senior grit,  Tuesday’s 1-0 win over Chariho, a surprise semifinalist itself, sends Mt. Hope to its first state title game since it won the crown in 2007.

“My legs are still shaking,” Mt. Hope goalie Emily Moran said after the win. “We worked incredibly hard for this all season long. We woke up with a good feeling; we executed perfectly.

“It was a little slow in the first half but we like to scare our coach.”

“It doesn’t even feel real right now,” said Mt. Hope freshman Sara Nencka, who scored the lone goal in the win. “I still haven’t taken in the win. I’m so glad we pulled off the win to get to the finals.”

The entire season has been a grind for the Huskies. They played the state’s top teams tough, coming away with wins against Chariho, North Kingstown and Pilgrim and draws with La Salle and Cumberland. They also lost some games that didn’t quite make sense, especially in the last two weeks of the regular season when Mt. Hope went 1-3, a streak that started with a 3-0 loss to Smithfield.

“We need our downs to have our ups,” Moran said. “We learned a lot from that game, that we can’t take anything for granted, we can’t take it easy on any team really.”

The Huskies took care of business in the quarterfinals, dispatching South Kingstown, 4-0, and faced a Chariho that had faced plenty of adversity itself after the Chargers upset top-seeded Pilgrim.

Tuesday’s semifinal wasn’t going to be a high-scoring affair and it was clear from the start that the first goal was probably going to be enough to win. The game was physical between the 20 yard lines, but good chances were few and far between. Those that were put on net were easily dispatched by Moran and Chariho’s Reid DosSantos.

In the second half, Mt. Hope finally got an opportunity. Caitlyn Terceiro played a shot into the box that wasn’t handled cleanly, and Nencka, a member of the Huskies’ talented freshman group, was there to flick the ball in cleanly for a goal with 21:25 left to play.

“The goalie bobbled it in her hands and I was like, ‘This is my chance to score,’ ” Nencka said. “I kind of just went in and toed it as fast as I could before the goalie could get it with her hands and it just went in.”

“I don’t even have to both to run down there because I’m celebrating by myself over here,” said Moran, motioning to the goal she was patrolling in the second half. “I’m happy as can be my team did it. I do my work down here for them; they do their work down there for me.”

Chariho continued to challenge for the equalizer, but the Mt. Hope defense and Moran kept the Chargers off the board, with their last chance coming in the final two minutes on a shot that missed its mark wide right.

The loss marked the end of a terrific postseason run. Chariho, which was without the services of All-Stater Ryann Denecour late in the season, pitched shutouts against Moses Brown and Pilgrim to earn its second straight semifinal appearance.

“Everyone was still working as a team. Ryann was still here supporting us,” said Chariho’s Emily Brown, who was dominant vs. MB and scored the lone goal in the win vs. Pilgrim. “We just really started picking it up. We knew we had to go as far as we could and try and beat last year.”

After losing in the semifinals the last two seasons, the same thought was on Cumberland’s mind this fall.

It didn’t take long for the Clippers to establish themselves as the state’s best team. Being the best team in the regular season and the best team in the playoffs are two different things. Cumberland had to grind out its quarterfinal win and knew North Kingstown, which upset La Salle in the quarters, wasn’t going to give up its title quietly.

“We didn’t come into the game saying we’re going to win, but we definitely game into the game knowing that NK won the past [two] years in a row and we needed to shut them down,” Gervais said. “Cumberland came through.”

The Clippers came through by coming out of the gates with their hair on fire, with a goal from Ines Oliveira off an assist from Nicole Calle nine minutes into the game.

“I just kept telling our strikers we needed to find the back of the net real soon, and if we didn’t, there would be a lot of pressure on us,” Gervais said. “Once we got that first goal, we all played defense, got a feel of the game and went from there.”

Cumberland’s play in the midfield was terrific and the Clippers had a bounty of looks on which they just could not convert. Some missed high, some wide, but North Kingstown keeper Sydney Allen came up with more than a few great saves to keep the deficit at one.

The Clippers finally extended it in the second half as Paynter Maher cleaned up a rebound after another terrific Allen save for a 2-0 lead.

Down, 2-0, North Kingstown took its game to the next level. With Cumberland sitting back willing to play defense, the Skippers got aggressive in the offensive end. The final 10 minutes was a barrage of offensive attacks, but Payton Goulding came up with a couple of big saves late to ensure the victory.

“I have a lot of trust in Payton behind me to save those,” Gervais said. “She did a really good job tonight.”

The loss ended an impressive reign for the Skippers, who were trying to become the first public school to three-peat as state champs since South Kingstown did it from 1997 to 1999.

North Kingstown battled the injury bug but the players never thought they were anything but a championship-caliber team. Its showed as much in the quarterfinal upset of La Salle.

“We wish we could have gone further, but we’re grateful that we got this far and we’ll be back here next year,” North Kingstown All-Stater Bella Cambio said.

“There was definitely pressure and we know not everyone wanted us to win, but I don’t think that affected our game.

“We’re coming next year. We will be back and we will be better.”

The State Championship game is set for 11 a.m. Saturday, and while it’s an early start, both teams will be more than ready. Cumberland will be considered the favorite, but neither the Clippers nor the Huskies will be worried about anything that’s not happening on the pitch.

“Either way, we’re ready,” Moran said. “We haven’t been on the map for a while, but we’re always right here. We always put in the most effort.

“We’re a well-rounded team and we’re ready for Saturday.”

“We just show up and play Cumberland soccer,” Gervais said. “We came in first place, but we’re not thinking about that. This is a new time — playoffs.”

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Cumberland, Mt. Hope will face off in Saturday's RIIL girls soccer final