AUBURNDALE, Fla. – The Ponte Vedra girls soccer team is the best in the state again.
The Sharks withstood a late push from Lourdes Academy and held on for a 2-1 win in the Class 5A state championship game Saturday afternoon at the Lake Myrtle Sports Park in Auburndale.
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The back-to-back titles are push Ponte Vedra’s total to five. For head coach Dave Silverberg, it’s the ninth championship of a hall of fame career. Silverberg won four at Nease.
This one was special in a different way. The Sharks lost nearly a dozen seniors to graduation or early enrollment. That included star players Natalie Brooks (Clemson) and Jenny Dearie (North Carolina). That meant the Sharks needed every bit of their lineup to produce, and it did. Ponte Vedra scored two minutes into the game when Izzy Whitaker pushed a ball into Katie DeVincentis, who knocked it off a Lourdes player and into the net.
The Sharks got their next goal on one of the prettiest shots of the year, this one by Lulu Consunji. Taking a free kick from 35 yards away, Consunji put it just past Whitaker’s head and into the net at the 15-minute mark for a 2-0 lead. The Bobcats pressed furiously after that and scored their lone goal in the final 10 minutes, but the Ponte Vedra defense held strong.