The Wake Forest Demon Deacons (11-5-4) saw their season come to an end on Thursday at DeMartin Stadium in a 1-0 defeat to the Michigan State Spartans (15-3-6). With this result, the Spartans moved onto the Round of 16 for the third straight year, and, after defeating the Colorado Buffaloes 2-1 earlier today, they moved onto the first NCAA quarterfinal in program history. The Deacs, meanwhile, closed out their season with a 2-5-1 record away from home, also ending the year on a 9 game run without
a shutout. This was a game where the Deacs hardly had a kick of the ball, and, although they defended valiantly throughout the 90 minutes, the Spartans found the goal they needed and likely deserved, and they saw out the result to advance to the next round.
The first half was entirely dominated by the Spartans, who started white hot and kept the pressure on in the Deacs’ end. They nearly opened the scoring in the game’s 4th minute when a long ball over the top of the defense from MSU midfielder Bella Najera caught the Deacs off balance, allowing forward Emerson Sargeant to run in on goal, but Sargeant’s effort would only rattle the far post. The Spartans would put 7 further shots towards the Wake goal in the first half, but main topic of discussion was not the Spartans’ play, it was the officials. In the game’s 28th minute, MSU were once again pushing the ball through the Deacs’ third, with Emerson Sargeant putting a cross into the area that was not met by any other Spartan. However, she, and several of her teammates, appealed to the referee for a handball against Wake center back Tahlia Zadeyan, who had come out to challenge Sargeant’s cross and put her arms up as the ball was sent in. It looked as if the ball may have struck Zadeyan’s arm in the penalty area on its way through, and the center official was called over the monitor to review the play. However, it did not appear as if any of the camera angles they had access to would give them conclusive evidence to overturn the call on the field, and, after a lengthy review, no penalty was given.
The officials were once again called into action in the 40th minute of the game, with Zadeyan once again in the middle of the action, as MSU midfielder Kayla Briggs went down under a sliding challenge by the Wake defender inside the penalty area. It was a bang-bang play that looked as if it could have been called either way on the field, but the official would only award a corner kick to the Spartans, and VAR would not intervene. From the ensuing corner, the officials once again had a major decision on their hands, as defender Ava Lutke found herself unmarked just inside the penalty area on an inswinger from Renee Watson, and she headed the ball back through traffic to forward Kennedy Bell at the back post, who tapped it into the back of the net, but the flag came up on the far side for offside. This time, the referee was sent to the monitor to take a look at the play, but this one was a bit more cut and dry, as Bell looked to be just offside on the initial header from Lutke, and the ball appeared to take a touch on the way through by a Michigan State player, at which point Bell was well behind the last Wake defender. The Deacs weren’t out of the woods yet, though, as keeper Valentina Amaral was called into action in the 43rd minute, as a wonderful passage of play up the right flank from the Spartans gave Bella Najera a shooting opportunity inside the penalty area, but the marvelous Wake keeper made her 5th and final save of the half, getting her right boot out to repel Najera’s effort. She would finish the game with 9 saves. When the buzzer sounded to end the half, the Deacs were hanging on by a thread, but they were still hanging on.
In the second half, the Spartans still controlled possession, but the Deacs started well and counter attacked more effectively. After being held without a shot in the first half, the Deacs put up 4 shots in the first 15 minutes, including 1 on target. However, the chances kept coming at the other end. In the 56th minute, Amaral came up huge against Bella Najera again, with the Wake keeper making a fabulous diving stop low to her left on a curling effort from Najera that looked destined for the bottom corner. In the 61st minute, she was called into action once more, with defender Ava Lutke finding herself totally unmarked again on a corner kick, this time in close quarters at the back post, but she couldn’t connect cleanly with her header, and Amaral was able to beat it away for another corner kick. In the 69th minute, though, the dam finally broke. Kayla Briggs had just put a shot agonizingly wide of the goal for the Spartans, allowing the Deacs to build out of the back from a goal kick, but fullback Brooke Miller would get caught in possession, and the Spartans were able to counter quickly and set up Briggs with another opportunity just inside the area off of a feed from Shelby Vaughn. This time, Briggs made no mistake, chipping the ball over Amaral, who could only tip it off of the underside of the crossbar and into the back of the net for Briggs’s 8th goal of the year, giving the Spartans a 1-0 lead. From there, MSU saw out the result. Emerson Sargeant nearly doubled their lead in the 73rd minute from a corner kick, settling the ball just inside the area and lashing it towards goal, but it stayed just wide. Valentina Amaral tried to keep the Deacs in the game with another heroic save, just getting her fingertips to a deflected shot by Kennedy Bell to guide the ball wide of the post for a corner kick. However, it was all for naught. After the Spartans’ goal, the Deacs only managed one shot in the last 21 minutes, and it was saved by Noelle Henning, who made 3 saves on the night. When the final buzzer sounded, Wake’s season would end.
It is tough to say that the Deacs deserved more in this game considering how well Michigan State played, but they defended resolutely throughout this one. They were one Kayla Briggs moment of brilliance away from sending this game into overtime, and who knows what could have happened then. This season was defined by their resiliency from the very beginning, as this was a team that lost 10 of the 15 players who appeared in last season’s national title game, but, in the end, they just didn’t quite have enough in them to get through the Spartans. There is really only one player who could be player of the match in this game, and that is Kayla Briggs. Briggs was brilliant throughout the game, creating plenty of opportunities for herself and her teammates against the Deacs’ low block, but she earned this recognition because she was the player who struck the decisive blow in this game. For Wake, it is back to the drawing board as they look to return to the lofty heights that they reached last season.
