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End of the Line: Fast Highland start trips up Covenant girls soccer in state final

Photo by Bart Isley

For Highland, the start was ideal. 

 

For Covenant, it was simply brutal. 

 

Immediately off the opening kickoff, Highland’s Lainey Mulkerin attacked and finished with ease, giving the Hawks an immediate 1-0 lead that eventually became a 4-1 victory over the Eagles in the VISAA D2 state championship.

 

“That obviously just generated some energy for us, you always love to get an early one,” said Highland coach Reynolds Oare. “That was big for us for sure.”

 

The Eagles faced a tall task against Highland, who has now won four state championships in the last five seasons and giving up the early goal put them in a near impossible hole to climb out of even though Isabella Conklin did everything she could to try and lift them out of it, including a tremendous one-woman run down the right side midway through the second half that ended in a goal. It was a culmination of Conklin’s relentless attacking effort throughout the match. 

 

“When she’s on and moving with pace and the ball at her feet she’s hard to stop,” said Covenant coach Bryan Verbrugge. “I was pleased to see her get that goal, I was hoping the one or two others that went just wide, one early off the crossbar — it could’ve been 4-4 — would’ve gone. I’m real proud of her.”

 

Highland’s center midfielder Olivia Simmons was an immense challenge for the Eagles, as the Purdue signee was for most any team she faced in high school and she scored once and assisted twice on Highland goals. She had to work for all that production though as Covenant’s Stella Maton did her finest to stick with Simmons and force someone else to beat the Eagles. 

 

“She obviously got banged up a little bit today but she’s an even better person than she is a player,” Oare said. “She’s just phenomenal all the way around the board.”

 

Conklin, a Lynchburg signee, tried to provide the counterweight to Simmons in her own way, and drew the respect of Highland’s roster as several came over to try and lift up Conklin in the minutes after the match, letting her know how hard she’d played. Conklin had similarly tried to lift up Eastern Mennonite players in the aftermath of the state semifinal match. 

 

“They were trying to bring my spirits up and it shows a lot about their team,” Conklin said. “Because you can be really competitive on the field but how do you react to players crying and how are you going to try and help them?”

 

The fast start for Highland obviously made things extremely difficult for the Eagles and even with Conklin battling throughout the match the Eagles had trouble piecing together chances as an offense that had been explosive going into the state final seemed to run aground.

 

“I think they were ready from the get go and we were a little bit back on our heels,” Verbrugge said.

 

Next season, Covenant will have to replace Conklin, long-time keeper Tegan Murrie, Maton, Isabella Harris and A.J. Hudock but a young core led by eighth grader Makayla Hargrove and junior Abi Shim could have the Eagles back in the mix next spring. 

 

Conklin, for her part, was grateful for the chance to compete and finish her senior season playing on the last possible day.

 

“We really weren’t sure if we were going to have this season, just making it this far meant alot, it was the dream,” Conklin said. “We fought and gave 100 percent but Highland is a really great team and they deserve it. We did our best and that’s what matters.”

 

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