It has been said that it is hard to beat a team three times in one season. The theory is the two teams are familiar with each other which can lead to evenly matched games.
The saying certainly isn’t true when you play defense like the CVU girls soccer team.
The top-seeded Redhawks defeated three-seed South Burlington 4-0 in the Division I championship game Saturday for their third win of the season versus the defending champions.
| 1 | 2 | Final | |
| South Burlington | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| CVU | 1 | 3 | 4 |
CVU (16-1-1) outscored South Burlington 10-0 in their three meetings while dominating all opponents 55-7 on the scoreboard en route to their first title since 2006.
“In practice, we talked about the fact that they hadn’t score on us,” said CVU girls soccer head coach Brad Parker about the Rebels. “We play defense first—we stress it everyday in practice and we take a lot of pride in it.”
CVU lost thirteen seniors to graduation from last year’s top seeded team. The losses didn’t show as Saturday’s win was a youth effort—all four Redhawk goals all were scored by sophomores. The first of which was provided by Mackenzie Kingston, putting CVU in front 1-0 midway through the first half.
“I’m so proud of everybody,” said an elated Kingston after the game. “This is one of the best teams I have ever been a part of.”
Her teammates backed her up as CVU doubled their lead twelve minutes in the second half when Emily Kinneston scored seconds after a save from SBHS goalie Sophie Barrett denied her the net. The lead was pushed further by Haliana Burnhans with 17:59 to play in the game. Eighteen seconds later, Emma Davitt scored off a penalty kick to seal the win.
“Our whole defensive line played amazing,” said Kinneston. “We still had to prove something against South Burlington because they had a great season and they were the champions.”
South Burlington (14-4) scored 61 goals during the season but their talented offense was shutout as they looked to win back-to-back titles.
“They play an awfully nice possession game and move the ball around well,” said Parker. “Our goal was to keep them out of the eighteen.”
Bryn Philibert finished with two saves for CVU. Barrett stopped four CVU shots for South Burlington before giving way to Taylor Gloyd who had one save.
