HARTFORD CITY — The Whitko girls soccer team is forgoing the growing pains of being a new IHSAA-sanctioned program. In its first season as an IHSAA team, the Whitko Lady Wildcats (9-2-1) won the Class 1A Blackford Sectional Saturday afternoon, defeating the Blackford Lady Bruins 2-1 in overtime. "I have 18 girls," Whitko coach Gary Sims said about his team. "Eight seniors, seven of them are starters. Those seniors have been with the program for a long time. We've been a club team for 12 years and I've been with it for six. I've had these girls since they were in sixth grade." One of those girls is Micaela Sylvester, who scored 49 seconds into the contest. "It felt so good to get that goal right off, getting us off to a good start and getting our team pumped and excited," Sylvester said. Whitko held that lead for 50 minutes, until Blackford sophomore Amber Underwood had her shot hit the left goalpost, but have enough spin to get into the back the net. The goal was enough to force overtime, as defense was key in the contest with Whitko getting a total of six shots on goal in the win, while Blackford had just three. "Both teams were out of gas by halftime," Sims said. "The second half was tough. I did not expect it to go into overtime, and I'm sure it took both of us off-guard." After spending the majority of the game on Blackford's side of the field, Whitko was finally able to maintain possession in overtime, and capitalized when senior Katee Reiff found Sylvester in front of the net for the go-ahead goal with 3:24 remaining in the first of the two seven-minute overtime periods. "After that, it was like, 'OK, now we need to play good, hard defense.'," Sylvester said about the mentality of the team after scoring her ninth goal of the season. The defense did hold up, helping the Lady Wildcats win the eight-team tournament, which is as big as a sectional can get. "We had been watching how the sectional was going, and we had played a few of these teams during the season," Sims said. "I knew, going into this, that this was anybody's sectional. Anybody. These eight teams were probably the most evenly-matched that I've seen in a sectional. Now, the competition gets turned up a notch as Whitko travels to the Fort Wayne Canterbury Regional Saturday, where it will face No. 4 Fort Wayne Concordia at 1 p.m. "We're going to cherish this moment right now," Sims said. "Monday, we'll probably think about (the regional). When else are we going to be able to play those big teams? It will be good for the younger players. We'll just see what happens." Until that regional, Sylvester and the rest of her teammates will just be soaking in the sectional title. "It feels so good," she said. "In our first year, we get a sectional championship. It's nice. We're all excited."
