So in the second half, the Patriots went to the long shot. With a 30-yard goal from Anja Gatto and a 37-yard beauty from Mianna Barboza, B-P beat third-seeded Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk 2-0. B-P (13-6) will play the winner of Tuesday's later game between Cohoes and top-seeded Schalmont.
Part of the first half was Ravena dropping five or six defenders pretty deep into the zone, leaving B-P's forwards outnumbered. However, that left a lot of room for its midfielders farther out. Gatto took advantage first.
After taking a short pass from Barboza, she put her shot to the upper part of the net, slightly right-side, 6:06 into the second half. Barboza then stopped a clearing pass, turned, sized it up for a second and then shot it into the upper net with 14:33 left. It is Broadalbin-Perth's third trip to a Section 2 final, and the previous two have ended in losses to Schalmont.
"We honestly want redemption on Schalmont, that's just our goal, and we're doing everything we can as a team to get to that spot," Barboza said. "We do a lot of long shots in practice, so I think we were just using that in the game," Barboza said. "We expected they were going to transition fast on us to get back," B-P coach Rob Klug said.
"We talked about the final ball getting across, the determination to get to that final ball. Of the long shots, Klug said, "If they're quality strikes, you never know what can happen.".
