SILOAM SPRINGS, Ark. – Since he's been taking Wayland Baptist's women's soccer teams to Arkansas to face perennial power John Brown University, coach.
Shiloh Posey and the Pioneers have made the long trip back home to Plainview mostly dejected.
Not this time.
Having been turned away all 12 times previously on JBU's home field, the Pioneers – after a 1-1 double-overtime tie – were able to experience elation when they advanced into the Sooner Athletic Conference Tournament semifinals on the strength of a 4-2 shootout victory over the 13
th-ranked Golden Eagles.
"I'm gassed right now," Posey said after a much-deserved celebration with his team. "My tank is empty."
Wayland went into the match having never beaten John Brown: 15 losses and three ties. They still haven't officially beaten the Golden Eagles, but now they at least have something to brag about.
"The desire was there to win tonight that I won't say has been lacking in the past, but maybe it was deeper tonight," Posey said. "The leadership – especially (seniors) Taylor (Moore) and Megan (Attenborough), you could sense the way they approached the game they didn't want this to be the last one."
And it won't be. Thanks to their third-ever playoff advancement, the Pioneers (6-6-3), who went into Saturday's match on a five-game losing skid, will face third-seeded Texas Wesleyan (13-5), a 4-0 winner over Southwestern Christian, in the semifinals on Tuesday at a time to be determined. The winner of that match advances to Friday's championship where a berth in the NAIA National Championship will be on the line.
Wayland and Texas Wesleyan will square off seven days after the Pioneers and Rams met in the regular-season finale in Fort Worth. TXWES won, 2-1.
Posey's team has grown used to traveling for the playoffs, especially to Arkansas as this was Wayland's fifth post-season trip to Siloam Springs in the past seven years.
The closest the Pioneers had come to ever tasting victory in Arkansas happened in the 2013 conference tournament semifinals when they battled the Golden Eagles to a 2-2 tie before John Brown won the shootout, 4-3.
To further explain Wayland's frustration against JBU, the Pioneers hadn't scored the last six times it had faced the Golden Eagles, who had outscored the Pioneers 28-0, including 3-0 when John Brown was ranked No. 8 back on Oct. 19.
Posey tried to downplay all of that in preparing his team for their latest challenge.
"It was a long trip, as it always is, but we really talked about how to approach this because we haven't had a lot of success against John Brown. Then it hit me. I told the girls we just need to play 60 seconds at a time. If you do your job for that one minute, and you do your job for the next minute, then you give yourself an opportunity at an upset."
Wayland appeared focused when Attenborough, assisted by
Mayra Sosa, gave the Pioneers a 1-0 lead just 10½ minutes in.
"Mayra made a really good pass to Megan, who got away on a counter-attack and beat her defender and hit a rocket of a ball," Posey explained. "It hit the upper 90 on the backside and couldn't have been any better placed."
The Pioneers spent much of the rest of the match protecting their slim lead.
"You kind of hold your breath a little bit," Posey said. "The girls battled and battled but John Brown put a lot of pressure on us and finally broke through."
Wayland was able to hold off the Golden Eagles, who outshot the Pioneers on the night 29-10, until Jenna Miller toed one in with a little over five minutes left in regulation.
Posey said he wasn't sure how his team would react after having battled a very deep John Brown team for 90 minutes.
"You get to overtime and think, 'OK, how's that going to go.' We're tired (Wayland used no substitutes in regulation)," Posey said. "But all of the girls were up to the challenge."
After neither team scored in either of the two 10-minute overtimes, the match went to penalty kicks.
Posey made just his second substitution of the match when he sent 5-foot-3 freshman
Jessie Rivera in goal for
Maci Merket, Wayland's all-American basketball player and first-year goalie. The coach said he and assistant
Tori Vazquez talked about that strategy before the match.
"Maci played a great game and made some really great saves, but Jessie is fearless at diving," Posey said. "That was the plan."
It paid off right away with Rivera got two hands on JBU's first PK, after Attenborough gave Wayland a 1-0 lead with a confident strike.
"Jessie blocked that first ball and something told me this is our night," Posey said. "That was stupendous. She did an outstanding job."
The Golden Eagles were able to tie it after
Vitoria Alves-Balieiro missed her shot for Wayland. Moore, the Pioneers' top scorer and lone all-conference honoree, gave WBU the upper-hand with another confident stroke before JBU's third attempt hit the crossbar and bounced out.
After sophomore
Kayla Ortiz was good for Wayland, and matched by JBU, senior
Stone Graham had a chance to win it.
"Stone is a four-year senior who has been here through all of those losses to John Brown, so I wanted her to have a chance to be the hero," said Posey, who didn't watch her shootout-winning shot. "I put my head down and listened to the reaction of the crowd."
Graham's shot was a roller to the right that got past the JBU keeper.
"A roll counts as much as a hammer," Posey said of the goal that ignited a Pioneer celebration.
"For Stone to have this moment as a four-year senior… I hope she remembers it forever," said Posey, adding that the Pioneers practiced some penalty kicks leading up to the match. "We didn't want to leave anything to chance."
