Pinckney's historic soccer run moves on to regional championship game
VICKSBURG — Pinckney’s girls soccer team isn’t done making history.
Coming off the program’s first district championship, the Pirates have added a victory in regionals to their resume after beating ninth-ranked Richland Gull Lake, 1-0, in a Division 2 regional semifinal Wednesday at Vicksburg High School.
The last Pinckney girls team to win a regional game in an MHSAA bracketed sport was the basketball team against Howell in the fall of 2005.
Senior Natalie Graves scored the winning goal with 17 minutes remaining off a pass from Claire Denton.
“I was playing a ball in the center-mid and I saw Claire was wide open, so I split the left back and center back,” said Graves, who has 12 goals this season. “Claire took it in, dribbled around a couple people and played a great ball in between two defenders. I had the ball, took a peek up, saw their goalie and took a shot; luckily, it went in.
“It was the best feeling ever. I was so excited. I ran to Claire kind of crying. I didn’t know what to do with all my excitement. I was just so happy.”
The fifth-ranked Pirates still had to close out the game, which wouldn’t be easy. Junior goalie Peyton Delongchamp made a diving save to prevent a shot from going into the top corner with three seconds left.
It was the 11th shutout and fourth in a row for the Pirates (15-1-1).
“The first half was rough,” Pinckney coach Sean Grace said. “They were a really good team. They definitely possessed more and had way more shots in the first half. After halftime, we made some adjustments and calmed down a little bit. It was a little bit closer. They still had more shots than we did. We just got lucky and capitalized on our opportunities. Our defense and Peyton stood on their heads and played absolutely amazing the entire game.”
Pinckney make the two-hour drive west again to face 11th-ranked Plainwell (17-2-3) for the regional championship at 6 p.m. Friday at Vicksburg.
“It’s huge for our school,” Graves said. “We are so grateful and we are going to hopefully represent our school and community well.”
Contact Bill Khan at wkhan@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @BillKhan.
This article originally appeared on Livingston Daily: Pinckney's historic soccer run moves on to regional championship game
