Girls' Soccer

River Hill Collects Another Crown
By B.J. Koubaroulis
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, November 18, 2007; D14

Erica Suter headed in Brittany Yancey's corner kick in the third minute of the second overtime to lift River Hill to a victory over Eastern Tech in last night's 2A state final at Broadneck, giving the Hawks their second consecutive state title and sixth since 1997.

"I knew it was a better corner kick than the ones I'd taken earlier because it was higher and it was farther," Yancey said of her 30-yard right-footed offering that Suter buried with a lunging header near the left post.

Yancey touched in Amy Song's 35-yard throw-in for a 1-0 lead in the 19th minute, marking the 13th time this season that fourth-ranked River Hill (18-1-1) had scored on a throw-in by the 5-foot-7 junior defender.

Eastern Tech junior forward Brittany Rhodes tied it at 1 in the 65th minute on a right-footed blast from 15 yards before Suter connected on the game-winner -- her 19th goal of the season.
Eastern Tech dropped to 13-3-1.

"I'm so glad we won because I think we deserved it," Suter said. "It didn't matter who scored, I just wanted to win a state championship as a senior."

River Hill followed last season's 20-0 run to the 3A state title with a dominant showing in Maryland's 2A classification, where it outscored its opponents, 70-16.

To remain battle-tested, River Hill relied on a brutal out-of-conference schedule, in which it defeated 10th-ranked 3A state champion Urbana (12-3-1), last season's 4A champion Leonardtown (14-3) and Glenelg (12-6-1), which captured its second consecutive 1A title last night.

"Honestly, I feel like we could have won the 3A title this year," Suter said.

The Hawks shut out nine opponents and outscored their five playoff opponents, 14-5.

River Hill 2 Eastern Tech 1 Suter's Season: River Hill senior Erica Suter finished the season with 19 goals and six assists. Howard's End: Howard County had a team in three of the state's four title games. River Hill and Glenelg captured titles and Wilde Lake dropped a shootout to Urbana in Thursday's 3A final.