The Northside Lady Bears went into Friday’s match with Southside knowing they needed two things to happen.

The Lady Bears needed a win — and for Mount St. Mary Academy to keep Little Rock Central from winning its fifth game.

Northside did its part thanks to freshman Brianna Lopez’s goal at the 22.56 mark of the second half.

Now, they’ll have to sweat it out this weekend while waiting for Mount St. Mary and Central to play their regular season finale.

A Central victory would eliminate the Lady Bears from post-season play.

“We’ve had so many games like this this year, and most of them didn’t go our way,” Northside coach Mauricio Maciel said following the Lady Bears’ 1-0 victory at Jim Rowland Stadium. “We have a very, very young team, and they were learning. Our senior, Kaitlyn Gilkey, did a great job leading us all season. But we lost a lot of games like this one, just because we were so inexperienced.”

“This was a very important win for us,” Gilkey said. “It’s been a really hard season. We’ve had so many close games, and a lot of them didn’t go our way. We missed some breaks.”

The Lady Bears and Lady Mavericks played a tight first half, though Northside seemed to control the tempo.

Southside came out as the aggressor to start the second half. And they were able to get a couple of good looks, including senior Hannah Schmidt’s split-second open look at the 26:22 mark that sailed wide of the net.


Schmidt fell to her knees, almost in disbelief.

Meanwhile, Southside sophomore Emily Forsgren played well in the loss. So did Rice, who, with 16.7 seconds left in the game, had a final opportunity.

With the ball placed at the Lady Bears’ 45-yard line, following a penalty, Rice let one fly as the Lady Bears held their collective breath as the ball sailed through the damp spring air before being cradled by Lady Bears’ keeper Debbie Rangel.

Rangel then kicked the ball back toward the Lady Mavericks as the clock struck zero.

Now the hard part; waiting for Monday.


