Class B girls soccer: Ally Fleury’s stunning corner seals WMass title for South Hadley

WEST SPRINGFIELD — Overtime felt inevitable toward the end of regulation of the Western Mass. Class B girls soccer final between No. 1 Belchertown and No. 3 South Hadley at Clark Field on Wednesday night.

The Orioles had just tied the game at 1-1 with less than eight minutes left on a masterful mid-air, tap-in from Morgan Litz, who was positioned at the Tigers’ back post and redirected a cross from Aubrey Klingensmith past South Hadley keeper Olivia Athas.

While the Tigers had plenty of scoring chances throughout the affair, it only broke through once, all the way back in the early-goings of the first half on a mid-field sky ball from Lea Agudelo that one-hopped over the head of Belchertown goalie Linnea Anderson and across the goal line, indicating that more soccer was on deck.

Ally Fleury had other ideas.

South Hadley’s senior captain scored the go-ahead, 2-1, goal on a sublime corner kick that curled right into the mesh with about four minutes left in regulation as the Tigers reclaimed the Class B crown in dramatic fashion.

“In the last minutes, I knew I had to take a chance of all my chances,” Fleury said. “We needed another goal after Belchertown [scored]. I was like, ‘we need another goal, we don’t want to go into overtime.’ I kept taking corner after corner on that play and at the end of it I was like, ‘I’m going to try to curl it in as far as I can,’ and hope it either goes in or someone will get something on it.”

Given the history between these two programs in the Class B title game, Wednesday’s proceedings shouldn’t have been all that surprising. South Hadley and Belchertown have squared off in the Western Mass. final in four of the last five seasons.

The Orioles held bragging rights heading into this year’s battle as the winners of the 2024 championship, while the Tigers last won sectionals in 2022.

“We have so many young kids on the team, so this is kind of like their first ever Western Mass. championship,” South Hadley head coach Rich Marjanski said. “I tell them how hard it is because growing up, me and our coaches never won a Western Mass. championship and it’s a special thing to do. There’s a lot of tough teams, so to get all the way to the finals and win, it’s a hard trip.”

The road back to the Class B championship was rather bumpy for the Tigers during the regular season as they managed a .500 winning percentage through their first eight games, then only slightly improved with 4-3-1 clip during their following eight-game stretch.

South Hadley’s struggles, relatively speaking, seem like a thing of the past now as its ripped off four straight wins and have bumped its record up to 11-7-1.

“We had a super competitive season with all of the teams we played,” Fleury said. “Class A, Class B, awesome, amazing teams. I think that even when we took a loss, we took it as some growth for us and we took it out there the next game.”

Despite losing six key figures from last year’s squad that advanced all the way to the MIAA Division 4 state tournament Round of 8, several impact players from that team, Fleury included, will do their best to guide the Tigers to another healthy postseason run.

“They had the feeling of when they got beat and it wasn’t a great feeling, but that’s what makes you better,” Marjanski said. “When you lose, you just have to give that extra effort, to put it out there, to win a championship. It doesn’t come easy.”

Unfortunately for fans of quality high school soccer, Belchertown and South Hadley will not meet again this postseason.

The Orioles (8-7-4) will compete in the Division 3 bracket and will strive to surpass their Round of 16 berth from a year ago.

Brackets for all five divisions, for boys and girls soccer, will be unveiled on Saturday.