Woodbury boys, girls headed to State

• Goal!

Senior forward Pat Moore is mobbed by his Woodbury boys soccer teammates after scoring the lone goal of a 1-0 victory over White Bear Lake late in the second overtime of the Section 4AA title game on Tuesday. Staff Photo by Tom Carothers.

Talk about it

The Woodbury boys and girls soccer teams both earned trips to State on chill-to-the-bone night at Royals Stadium as each squad defeated visiting White Bear Lake to win the Section 4AA Tournament.

They were two games on opposite sides of the dramatic scale as the WHS boys needed two overtimes to finally put away the Bears, while the girls required just 15 minutes to take a lead they would not relinquish.

WHS Boys

In spite of dominating the time of possession and controlling the pace of play throughout the evening, Woodbury simply could not get the upper hand on its pesky visitors as their sectional final went nearly 100 minutes before senior forward Pat Moore jammed home a rebound off an initial shot from junior midfielder Jan Groth to give Woodbury a 1-0 victory with two minutes, 12 seconds remaining in the second sudden death period.

"Jan played a great ball in and I got to it and tapped it in," Moore said.

The goal unleashed a wild Royals celebration as the team returns to State for the first time since a second-place finish in 2005.

"It was nerve-wracking, but fun too once we got the final result," WHS goalkeeper Peter Runquist said.

WHS Girls

Quite the different story from the Woodbury girls game, as about the only drama that occurred happened when the visiting Bears suddenly scored to pull within a goal in the 18th minute of play.

By that point, senior defender Sam Lumberg and senior middie Caitlin Graboski had already fired home goals, however, and senior defender Kassey Kallman gave the hosts all the offense they would need with a goal on a corner kick in the 26th minute that made the score 3-0.

Two more strikes, one from senior defender Mary Kroening, the other from junior midfielder Emily Moris made the count 5-1 heading into half.

White Bear Lake did manage to become the first team this year to score two goals on the Royals with a second-half tally, that coming nine minutes after senior forward Aly DuVal surgically placed a goal into the Bears' net in the 58th minute to close out Woodbury's scoring on the night.

The 6-2 final score sent the WHS girls into their typical understated section championship celebration, but it also did send the team back to State and to within three games of a back-to-back Class AA championship.

"We did well tonight, our offense was strong — and no one got hurt," co-head coach Bill Ebertz said. "It was a good night."

State Tournament

Woodbury's seedings, as well as time and location of Class AA quarterfinal matches, will be determined on Sunday. State tourney play is set to begin in the middle of next week.

Tags: sports, woodbury, boys, girls, soccer, section, 4aa, champions, state