Grant outlasts Cleveland for 6A Oregon girls soccer state championship: ‘Our chemistry is awesome’
So many huge plays.
So many tense moments.
So many momentum changes.
So, so many emotions.
But only one state championship.
And that went to the Grant girls soccer team.
The Generals earned their second Class 6A state title, and they got it in absolutely dramatic fashion, edging Portland Interscholastic League rival Cleveland 3-2 in overtime in a back-and-forth state championship match played in front of a large, raucous crowd Saturday at Sherwood High School.
“Oh my god, it means so much,” said Grant senior midfielder Bella Bohne, who scored the Generals’ first goal. “It’s our second one (Grant tipped Beaverton 4-3 in overtime in the 2021 title tilt), but it’s only the second one in program history, and it’s my second one, so it means so much more.”
“It’s awesome,” said Grant junior defender Chloe Herkert, who assisted on one of the goals. “This team is insane. Our chemistry is awesome. It’s unbelievable.”
“It feels really good after last year didn’t end the way we wanted it to, after winning state (the year before),” said Grant junior forward Kate Ratanaproeksa, who scored two goals, including the winner in overtime. “So, it feels really good to know we can do it. We wanted to prove that Grant is still one of the top programs.”
With the victory, Grant, coached by Manolis Tjuanakis, finished the season 17-2-1 to go with the team’s second state crown. Making the victory maybe even a bit sweeter is the fact that the Generals triumphed in an all-PIL title contest.
“That was really special,” Ratanaproeksa said. “The PIL, as a league, has been slept on a little bit in the past, and it just shows how good we are, which is really cool.”
The other half of that PIL equation, Cleveland, coached by Doug Diller, finished its season 15-2-3.
“It was a really good season for us,” said Cleveland senior defender Jaidyn Richter, who scored the first goal of the match. “I feel like we came out and put our hearts into every game. We worked our way up to this point, which I think is really cool.”
“It’s meant so much to be able to come this far,” Cleveland senior defender/forward June Healy said. “Last year, we got knocked out in the (quarterfinals). We left it all out there against Grant, and even though we didn’t come out on top, we played our hearts out.”
The 2023 Warriors also became the first girls soccer team in school history to earn a spot in the state championship match.
“That’s very special,” Healy said. “It means so much to be the first Cleveland team to be able to come this far.”
“Our playoff run was huge, and making it this far was amazing,” Richter said. “It means a bunch. Even though we lost to Grant, it was just so surreal and amazing.”
The Warriors sure didn’t seem to have any first title-match jitters, as, behind their aggressiveness and blazing speed, they got off to a strong start to the championship contest.
Cleveland took a 1-0 lead when Richter battled to head in a shot off a long pass from Elise Koehler with 21 minutes and 18 seconds left in the first half.
“I think it was partly my head that hit the ball, and partly the defender’s,” Richter said. “But I knew that, when Elsie Koehler plays those balls in, they’re pretty good. They’ll get in a dangerous spot, so I know that if I get somewhere around there and put some pressure on, it can be good.”
The 1-0 deficit put the Generals in an unfamiliar situation.
“When they scored first, I was like, ‘We’ve got to pick this up,’” Herkert said. “I think it took down our momentum a bit, I’m not going to lie.”
But it also seemed to eventually fire up the Generals.
“We really worked,” Herkert said. “It was so up and down. We just locked down on defense.”
While the Grant defense, including senior Erin McDevitt, Herkert, Bohne and junior Paige Nakada, picked up its game, so did the Cleveland defense, which included Richter, senior Evangaline Miller, junior Olivia Brown and freshman Anouk Malboeuf. The Warriors also got a huge play from junior goalkeeper Lloy Bartolotti, who made a diving save of an open shot by Nakada coming late in the first half.
But soon after, the Generals wouldn’t be denied. Grant tied the score at 1-1 when Bohne scored on a corner kick shot from the left side 1:36 before halftime.
“We put in a lot of work on corner kicks this year, so my mentality was to put it as close to the goal as I can and see what happens,” Bohne said. “I don’t know what happened — it just went in. It’s not the type of ball I usually play. I usually play it higher and a little bit more driven. I don’t want to call it lucky, because we earned it, but at the same time, it was nice that it ended up trickling in there. There were so many emotions. I was happy that we got back into the game.”
In Herkert’s mind, it did more than that.
“When we scored, I think it was with a few minutes (left in the first half), we were like, ‘This is our game,’” she said. “We knew it was our game from the start, but we just put our heads down and went to work, and it showed.”
It certainly seemed to show early in the second half.
Grant took its first lead of the match, at 2-1, when Ratanaproeksa, after taking a long pass from Herkert, scored on an open breakaway shot, putting the ball inside the right post of the Cleveland goal with 35:18 left in the second half.
“That felt great,” Ratanaproeksa said. “We were making those runs the entire game. It was amazing. It was a perfect pass.”
“That was incredible,” Herkert said. “It felt so connected. It worked, and all the pieces came together, and it was perfect.”
Then, it was Cleveland’s turn to rally. It took a while, but the Warriors tied the score at 2-2 when freshman Eleanor Cohen, after taking a pass from Richter, had her first shot blocked, but put her follow-up attempt inside the left post of the Grant goal with 10:01 left in the second half.
“That was amazing,” Richter said. “I know she can score those goals. Playing the ball like that, it’s amazing.”
Neither team was able to score again in regulation play, sending the contest to a 20-minute overtime, broken down to two 10-minute sessions.
“Going into overtime was very nerve-racking,” Bohne said. “There was a lot of tiredness contributing to the nerves, but we kept the same mentality — every whistle was a fresh start. We knew it was 20 minutes, and we had to give it everything that we’ve got.”
“I was a little stressed, I won’t lie,” Ratanaproeksa said. “But our team is really resilient, and we worked so hard to come back.”
“I was exhausted,” Herkert said. “It was a lot. But it was our last 20 minutes of the season, and we were like, ‘Hey, we’re going to give it our all.’ We practice PKs all the time, but we didn’t want to let it come to that.”
Grant got shots from Bohne and sophomore Tula Smith in the first 10-minute overtime session, and Cleveland countered with attempts by senior Lucy Weinberg, Koehler and Healy, but the teams went to the second 10-minute overtime session still knotted at 2-2.
The Warriors came oh-so-close to taking the lead in the second overtime session, when Koehler had a long-range shot from the right side bounce off the crossbar of the Grant goal with 6:26 to play.
Soon after, the Generals, and Ratanaproeksa, were able to break through.
After the ball was sent forward from Nakada and Herkert, who were handling the ball in the back, Ratanaproeksa was able to convert another breakaway opportunity, putting her shot past a diving Bartolotti and inside the right post, giving Grant a 3-2 lead with 4:49 remaining.
“I just kind of went for it. I didn’t know if it would go in or not. The goalie touched it, she’s a great goalie, so it was a little nerve-racking, but it turned out to be good. I was thrilled. I knew in that moment that we won the game,” Ratanaproeksa said. “It felt really good. We were all so tired. It was hard to keep playing at full speed, but we knew that if we got a goal, we’d be done.”
“Oh my god, bless her. That was awesome,” Bohne said with a smile. “We’ve been looking for that all game. We had so many chances on that, and it finally worked.”
“I just stopped in my tracks,” Herkert said. “I was like, ‘We did it.’ That really sealed the deal for me. It was awesome.”
A little less than five minutes later, the deal was officially sealed. The final horn sounded, and the Generals were celebrating their state championship.
“I started crying,” Bohne said. “It’s my last game. I’m a senior, but they were tears of excitement. You can’t go out a better way.”
“I just started crying,” Herkert said. “I was like, ‘Oh my god.’ I don’t even know how to explain it. It was one of the best feelings in the world. This is the most insane feeling ever.”
“I was thrilled. I was excited,” Ratanaproeksa said. “We won my freshman year, so I know what it feels like to win and what it feels like to lose. It just felt amazing.”
Grant had eight shots on goal and five corner kicks. Generals sophomore goalkeeper Lucy Kapranos made eight saves.
Cleveland had 10 shots on goal and four corner kicks. Bartolotti made five saves.
“We knew it was going to be an even match,” Richter said. “We didn’t get scared when we went down a goal. We worked our way back up. We knew that it had to be one of us that had to win. It was sad that it didn’t go our way, but we’re happy with how our season ended. Yes, 100 percent, this is a good way to end my career here.”
“I’m so proud of our team, and I couldn’t be happier than finishing up like this,” Healy said. “We had so much fun, no matter the outcome. We played our game. We played like Cleveland women’s soccer, and we’re proud of that. We don’t regret anything.”
Photos by Taylor Balkom
—
Earlier playoff coverage:
First round | Second round | Quarterfinals | Semifinals
Meet the state’s best girls soccer players:
Goalkeepers | Defenders | Forwards | Midfielders
