Photo/Emily Saunders South Forsyth's girls soccer team erupts in celebration after defeating Kennesaw Mountain on penalty kicks in the semifinal round of the Class AAAAA state tournament. The Lady War Eagles will compete for the state championship against Parkview Saturday afternoon at War Eagle Field. Photo/Emily Saunders South's Katie Phillips, left, kicks the ball down the line away from Cici Jacob.

The end was in sight for South Forsyth Wednesday.

Trailing No. 2 Kennesaw Mountain 1-0 in the semifinals of the Class AAAAA state playoffs, the 3rd-ranked Lady War Eagles were less than a minute from seeing their state championship dreams stolen on their own field.

Then freshman Vicky Freyer gave her team new life, catching a pass from Renee Thierer in front of the net and booting it home to tie the game with 57 seconds left.

The Lady Eagles took advantage of the second chance, grinding through a pair of five-minute overtimes before finally dispatching the Lady Mustangs 5-3 in a penalty kick shootout and earning a slot opposite Parkview in the state championship game on Saturday.

"I'm just really excited that my team was able to get this far and we really deserved to win," Freyer said.

"This is going to be a memorable year for me because I'm a freshman and scoring that [tying goal] in the playoffs is just amazing. ... I almost cried."

"We needed someone to step up to be a hero," South coach Tom Braun said. "Our freshman came through and tied the game with [about] 50 seconds left."

With the game deadlocked 1-1, South's Katie Phillips got a couple of golden scoring opportunities in overtime but couldn't convert, leading to the decisive five-a-side shootout.

One after the other, South's girls put the ball past Mustang keeper Lauren Worley, but Kennesaw Mountain answered each time. The back-and-forth held until Mustang Kristen Kranick kicked the ball right into the hands of Eagle keeper Missy Meyer on Kennesaw Mountain's fourth kick, the only save for either side in the shootout. That preserved a 4-3 lead for South and set the stage for junior Jenna Trotter, who stepped up and sailed the ball over Worley's head and into the net, clinching the win and triggering an explosion of emotion by the other South players.

"We knew they were going to be a very good team," Braun said of Kennesaw Mountain. "They were ranked No. 2 in the state, 19-1 coming in. They were [Region 5-AAAAA] champs, so we totally respected them. We knew we had to play our game plan and we did, except putting the ball in the back of the net at the beginning, but everything [else] we tried to do, we did."

With the win, South advances to play No. 1 Parkview on Saturday. The undefeated Lady Panthers breezed past Union Grove in the other semifinal by an 8-0 count.

It will be the third top-3 team South meets in these playoffs, having defeated then-No. 3 Brookwood in Round 2 and the No. 2 Mustangs on Wednesday.

"We're going to get Parkview, and that's fine with us," Braun said. "If you want to be the best, you have to beat the best, and right now they're the best and they're the favorites coming in."

South will host the championship game, as they have every round of the playoffs, the result of a Region 7-AAAAA championship combined with a fortunate bracket placement that gave the Lady Eagles home field in any matchups with other No. 1 seeds.

"It's worked out great [being at home]. I really appreciate playing here again on Saturday. We've been on so many bus rides, and it's nice staying home," Braun said.

Wednesday's game featured several great scoring chances in the first half, most of them for South, but the game remained a defensive struggle and was scoreless deep into the second half. The visiting Mustangs finally broke through with 23:04 left in regulation, as Rebekah Parry was able to bounce an easy shot in after Meyer had been drawn out of net. It was the first goal surrendered by South in the postseason.

"I thought we had the better of the play all night," Braun said. "We missed so many opportunities, but the kids got down a goal and never gave up, and that's been our attitude all year, never to give up until it's over and we came through," Braun said.

Kennesaw Mountain had won its last two rounds of the playoffs in shootouts, but the Lady Mustangs' luck with the dicey format ended at War Eagle Field. It's a feeling Braun also knows, having seen his girls eliminated in a shootout last year at Walton in the first round of state.

"We've been on the other end also before and penalty kicks are a hard way to lose. It's still a flip of a coin," Braun said. "Any given night, anyone can win on that and that's why we were hoping just to win on the field and not to go to that."

South came up short in the state championship game in 2005, with a handful of the team's current seniors having been on that team. On Saturday, they'll get one more shot at immortality.

Braun wasn't with the program three years ago, but he knows that slipping past the Mustangs, while a sweet victory, isn't quite the end.

"Can't ask for anything more -- except one more win," he said.

E-mail BJ Corbitt at bjcorbitt@forsythnews.com.

Originally published Friday, May 9, 2008