Summit Country Day wins girls' soccer state title
COLUMBUS - It was the perfect way to end the season. The perfect way to end a career.
In her final game in a Summit uniform, captain Addy Smythe led her team to its first state championship since 2011. She recorded a hat trick in the first half and helped push the Silver Knights to their 6-0 victory.
Her hat trick was one of a couple records the team set yesterday. She set the Division III girls state championship record for goals in a game. As a team, they scored the most goals in a state final game, regardless of division. The previous record holder was the 2011 version of the team.
Addy joins her older brother Austin as a state champion. He won two titles with Summit's boys team, which plays Saturday for a shot at its third title in four seasons.
"It feels awesome," she said of bringing another title to the Smythe household. "He always teases me when we get in a fight and says ' how many rings do you have?' I told him I was going to get one. My senior year ending with a state championship is unbelievable."
Summit put one in the back of the net with 12 minutes gone in the first half, but it was waved off. Minutes later, Ravin Alexander dribbled the ball deep down the side of the field and sent a cross into the box.
After it was kicked around, it ended up on the foot of Jess De Jesus, who put the first marker on the board.
After that, Summit's offense got rolling.
At the 32-minute mark, Smythe struck for her first goal. Five minutes later, number two found the back of the net. Her third goal came before the tweet about her second goal was sent.
Summit led 4-0 going into the half.
"She was unbelievable," coach Michael Fee said. "She's been our cog all season. At halftime, she told me some of those goals were lucky. I told her 'there wasn't anything lucky about them. You made them happen.' "
Three minutes into the second half, Smythe teamed up with Alexander for the team's fifth goal.
After the game, Fee said he knew they would be able to do some things on the outside with the team's overall speed, but they never expected to score that many goals.
As time waned in the game, Fee emptied his reserves, putting all eight of the team's seniors on the field at one time.
In the final 12 seconds, senior Morgan Evans found fellow senior Janel Bond for the team's final goal.
"Like the commissioner said, we had such a hard time trying to get back," he said. "I'm just so proud that our team could run through the season without a defeat, get back here and win it. Having eight seniors on the field was a great ending to the season."
EXTRA POINTS: Summit outscored its postseason opposition 30-1. Goalkeeper Mimi Stines and the defense recorded seven shutouts in that span.
"I couldn't have done it without my defense for sure," Stines said. "We wanted this so bad. We didn't know much about this team, but we acted like this game was against a (caliber of team like) Badin, acted like this was a huge game. We knew at halftime we weren't done. We wanted to finish this off strong."