STURGIS — For more than 73 minutes of game time on Tuesday, the Edwardsburg-Sturgis district soccer match went without a goal on the board.
Then, everything changed in the final few moments of the match. Sturgis took advantage of an Edwardsburg turnover in the midfield and sent a through-ball up the field to the team’s best scorer.
Rubi Anicua found herself racing toward the ball on the Edwardsburg side of the pitch on that counterattack. She beat everyone to the ball and dribbled it toward the Eddie goal, ultimately blasting a shot into the back of the net to put the Trojans ahead in the 74th minute.
It was all Sturgis needed, though the Trojans won the match 2-0. Sturgis was hosting the opening-round district contest against the Eddies and had a little bit of revenge on their minds.
“It feels great. This team has worked hard, and when you see the progress from last year, it’s a rewarding feeling,” second-year coach Jose Arias said. “When you take a big step like we did this year, it’s just so nice to see.”
Edwardsburg beat Sturgis 3-2 back in April.
Sturgis improved to 11-6-1 on the season with the victory on Tuesday. It puts it into the district semifinals against Vicksburg, another team that won over the Trojans during the regular season, 4-1. Vicksburg won its opening-round matchup over Niles, 9-1, on Monday evening.
“To finish with a winning record, to host districts for the first round, to get the dub against an Edwardsburg team who beat us earlier this year, I told the girls this is the kinda thing that can happen when you work hard,” Arias said. “We are growing and competing as a team. We are going out and winning games.”
Following Anicua’s goal late in the game, Sturgis earned itself an insurance goal. That came from Lashmy Garcia, who re-directed a ball from out in front of the net and scored fewer than two minutes after Anicua’s tally.
Sturgis’ game against Vicksburg will take place at 5 p.m. Tuesday, May 26, at St. Joseph High School. The other semifinal will feature host St. Joseph playing Stevensville-Lakeshore in the late contest.
“We set goals at the beginning of the season, and we fell short of a few of those, but we talked about how the only way to come back from that was to set new goals and play to those,” Arias said.
Contact Sports Editor Brandon Watson at bwatson@gannett.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @BwatsonSJ.
This article originally appeared on Sturgis Journal: Sturgis Trojans score two late goals to win in first round of districts