If you were talking about a big underdog win involving Cary this weekend in women’s soccer, you might be talking about UNC’s unlikely victories to win the ACC, held in WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary.  But this weekend another lesser known underdog women’s soccer story also developed involving Cary.

  The U-16 Riptide is a young women’s soccer team from Cary who play in the Challenge division of the Capital Area Soccer League (CASL).  Over the course of several weekends teams from all over North Carolina have been competing in various levels of State Cup Tournament play.  On Sunday, Nov. 8^th, just a few hours before Carolina won the ACC title, Riptide won its first ever State Championship.

The Riptide team came off an average season, 4-4-1, and the girls were not considered a serious contender for the Challenge State Cup.  The team headed to Burlington for the opening-round games.  In their first games, Riptide defeated a tough PTFC White team from High Point and a few hours later Riptide battled to a tie with the Raleigh-based CASL Blast, last year’s State Cup winner.  The following day, Riptide was forced into another tie game as play was suspended to due to cold, wet, soppy fields.  Riptide had done just enough to qualify for the Final Four as last year’s winner was knocked-out of the competition. 

On Saturday, Nov. 7th,  the team from Cary headed over to Wilson for a semi-final game against the Raleigh-based CASL Spirit, the favored team to win it all this year.  Riptide had been beaten twice by the Spirit during regular season play and everyone knew exactly how this game would end … except for the Riptide team.  With nothing to lose, Riptide was able to put the ball in the goal three times during the first half heading toward a 3-1 win. 

 On Sunday morning Riptide was getting ready for the their final game.  It was an incredible fall day with sunshine and temps in the 60’s.  They were playing the Twin City Royals from of Winston-Salem.  The Royals were the State Champs two years ago and this was their third consecutive championship appearance.  To make matters worse, the Royals had beaten Riptide twice the prior year, eliminating them from State Cup play.  Late in the game, with the Riptide up 2-0 the Royals had a few good looks at the goal – one shot pinging off the post and then with ten minutes to play, the Royals earned a Penalty Kick.  The “PK” went sailing over the goal.  Riptide had won the U16 State Championship 2-0.

Fourteen 15-year-olds leaped in the air as the final whistle blew.  You would have thought they had won the ACC.

 Congratulations RIPTIDE!

Riptide – State Tourney Champs