It’s happened slowly and then all at once for William Monroe girls soccer.
The slow part? An annual build under coach Jeremy Lamm where the Dragons have made mostly steady progress, mixing in younger players and developing athletes who don’t play soccer year round while winning some regional playoff games and nabbing some huge regular season victories.
The all-at-once part? Sydney Dombrovskis blasting a shot hard enough that it ricocheted off a defender and into the goal late in the second overtime of the Region 3B semifinals.
Dombrovskis goal, after a defensive stand to close out the match, lifted Monroe to a 2-1 overtime win against Spotsylvania and the program’s first-ever state tournament berth.
“It’s absolutely fantastic, we lost to Spotsylvania last year (in the region playoffs),” Lamm said.
The Dragons punched their ticket to the state tournament on the back of two Dombrovski goals as their speedy sophomore forward scored two completely different ways. The first a beautiful shot with 27:04 left to beat Spotsylvania’s keeper Brianna Garcia who Lamm described as the best keeper they’d seen all season, perhaps the best in his tenure. Then came Dombrovskis’ game-winner, a blast off a defender that re-directed and found the back of the net.
“She’s amazing,” Lamm said. “She has one speed and it’s turbo.”
The Dragons’ defense held up for the most part, with keeper Alex Sharff making three saves on the night. They surrendered their lone goal with 13:33 to play, an equalizer that eventually forced overtime and tested the Monroe defense’s stamina on a hot evening. But Monroe kept things clean from there, opening the door for Dombrovskis’ heroics.
The Dragons’ getting over the hump and into the state tournament for the first time is in part because this was one of the first years they haven’t been breaking in a wave of new players. They lost just four seniors last year, two of whom were big parts of the rotation. Without a lot of turnover, there was a lot of familiarity and a lot of development. That combination can be clearly seen in Olivia Binggeli and Stacey Calderon-Castillo, two captains who have helped steady a roster that’s otherwise still pretty green.
“I’ve worked with them the past five years and they’ve really had a breakout season,” Lamm said. “Just seeing them progress — the skills are growing, the maturity is growing. It’s just one of the best groups I’ve been around.”
Now that group gets a chance to play for a state championship when they jump into state tournament play. First, they take on No. 1-seeded Brentsville, a squad they split with in the regular season winning at Brentsville back in late April in the Region 3B championship match.
