Cardinal Newman blanks Hammond in semifinals

Hammond made the Cardinal Newman girls work for more than 30 minutes to get the first goal of their SCISA 3A semifinal showdown Thursday night

But then, the defending state champion Cardinals scored twice. Aydan Boatwright nudged a ball in at the 31st minute, and one minute later Tristan Millard put in another goal.

From that point, Cardinal Newman closed out a 4-0 victory over the Skyhawks at St. Sebastian field.

“We played them twice before and had a high attack,” said Cardinal Newman coach Will Plexico, referring to his team’s 4-0 and 6-0 victories over the Skyhawks earlier this year. “Coming into this game, I wanted us to play with high attack, but we came out a little jittery.”

Nonetheless, one day after the Cardinal Newman boys team clinched a return to the state final, the girls team (14-4) did the same. Both teams travel to Porter-Gaud in Charleston, where the boys take on Hammond, and the girls defend their title against Porter-Gaud.

“It’s not an easy thing to achieve,” Boatwright said of this years’ return to the state title game. “You’ve got to go hard at each practice and go harder than you did last year.”

Cardinal Newman stayed in Hammond (8-11) territory. The Cardinals fired 13 strong shots at the goal in the first 30 minutes to no avail. Hammond goalkeeper T.J. Hain made three saves over that time.

“I think they wanted it too much,” Plexico said. “I tried to tell them to slow down a little. Their keeper made some incredible saves.”

“We went 30 strong, intense minutes there,” Skyhawks coach Nicole Bulinsky said. “We just made a couple of errors on the back, and they capitalized on those.”

Boatwright scored her second goal of the game on a penalty kick at the 45th minute. Kaya Morgan scored the Cardinals’ final goal at the 66th minute.

Hammond knew it faced a SCISA power in Cardinal Newman, and Bulinksy said she was proud of the way her team responded.

“They had a really intense battle Tuesday,” said Bulinksy about her team’s victory in PKs over Pinewood Prep. “I’m so glad we got a third opportunity to face Cardinal Newman. This caliber of program, this is what we want to be and what we’re trying to achieve.”