Rick Robb| Special to The Post
WELLINGTON — For the Wellington High girls soccer team, payback was sweet.
Still smarting from a season-ending loss to Treasure Coast in the regionals last year, the Wolverines returned the favor Friday night, rolling to a 3-0 victory over the Titans in a Region 3-7A semifinal game to move a step closer to the state tournament.
Rebecca Quintero, Hannah Pahl and Alana Riddle scored goals to send the second-seeded Wolverines (15-3) into the regional final against top-seeded Boca Raton (16-2-2) on Wednesday in Boca Raton.
Wellington coach Ashley Parrett knew her players would have all the motivation they would need when sixth-seeded Treasure Coast (10-10) upset third-seeded Harmony to set up a rematch of last year's regional semifinal. The Titans sent the Wolverines off their own field in tears with a stunning 2-1 victory.
"We did not want the same thing to happen this year," said Pahl, a senior co-captain and the team's leading scorer.
"I think that's been their motivation all week," Parrett said. "A lot of them were on this field last year and kind of felt that hurt, and none of them wanted that again. ... We came out and did exactly what we needed to do."
More soccer: Stay up to date with the best local teams!
Wellington applied pressure from the start and finally broke through about 14 minutes into the game. Quintero, a sophom*ore, took a crossing pass from Alex Rollo and lifted a 10-yard shot over the outstretched hands of goalkeeper Kayleigh Marreel.
Later in the half, after a couple of near-misses by the Wolverines, Pahl controlled a free kick by Rollo about 5 yards in front of the net and kicked it into the lower left corner to make it 2-0.
"We definitely knew that if we scored early that they were going to get frustrated and (we could) basically shut them down," Pahl said.
The Wolverines' defense, meanwhile, continued its stellar play over the past month. Since a 2-0 loss to Boca Raton on Jan. 11, Wellington has won seven straight games while outscoring its opponents 33-2.
The Titans came out attacking in the second half, but even when they were able to penetrate the Wolverines' back line, senior goalkeeper Emma Filice managed to keep the ball out of the net. Filice stopped a point-blank shot by Findley Wessel with about 18 minutes left that could have put Treasure Coast back into the game.
"If they score in that situation, it could have gone any way at that point," Parrett said. "Her keeping it out was a game-changing moment."
Junior Alana Riddle clinched the victory minutes later when she struck a left-footed shot from about 15 yards out that eluded Marreel, and the defense preserved the Wolverines' third shutout in four postseason games.
"Our defense has been lights out all year long," Parrett said. "We had some kinks in the beginning of the season that we've figured out. We have a young back line and they are absolutely performing amazing right now."
Treasure Coast coach Kyle Costigan, whose team has pulled off three regional upsets over the past two seasons, couldn't manage another one.
"We knew we had to start fast and we knew we had to strike quickly," he said. "It didn't happen, and that's where everything kind of started to fall apart."
Costigan knew the Wolverines would be motivated by last year's loss.
"We talked about that pregame," he said. "We've been talking about that for a couple days, ever since we knew we were going to play them, that they were going to come out firing because we beat them twice last year. So they had an enormous amount of motivation going in and it really worked in their favor."
Now the Wolverines must prepare for Boca Raton, a girls soccer juggernaut that has scored 69 goals and allowed only eight. The Bobcats, ranked fourth among the state's Class 7A teams, have dominated their four postseason opponents 18-1.
Pahl and Filice, both fourth-year varsity players, have never beaten the Bobcats.
"I definitely think we can beat them," Pahl said. "It's always been a close game and I think this year we have the best team out of all four years I've been playing. I think this is the year we go to states."
Parrett said that getting her team "mentally prepared" will be the biggest challenge.
"We do goals at the beginning of the year and every single one of them said go to a state championship," she said. "They've been focused on that all through the year, just getting to the point where we can compete for that, and I think we're in a really good position right now."
Costigan, for one, will be pulling for the Wolverines. Boca Raton knocked out the Titans in the regional finals last year and hung a 6-0 loss on them in December.
"Boca's got an incredible team," Costigan said, "but it would be nice if someone took down the titan."
