Center Point-Urbana heads to first state soccer title game with 1-0 win over North Polk

DES MOINES— It was always going to take something special to get sixth-seeded Center Point-Urbana to the Class 1A girls' state soccer championship game.

In the 46th minute a Stormin' Pointer attack had forced No. 2 seed North Polk to kick the ball out of bounds. Raegan Dufoe was on the corner kick for CPU — its sixth of the day — with the rest of the team in its normal set.

CPU, however, pulled out a bit of trickery. Dufoe sent the ball on a short pass to Abigail Weideman, who sent it straight toward the Comets' net. Weideman pushed it back across the middle, where it then bounced off a North Polk defender who was trying to clear and back to Adrianna Katcher, who put the ball in the net for a goal.

It was Katcher's second score of the tournament and 18th of the season. Both are team highs. The Pointers (17-4) were able to hang on to the 1-0 lead and are headed to the school's first girls' soccer state championship.

'Believe it or not, we planned that, we wanted to do a short little corner like that,' CPU co-head coach Todd Mitchell said. 'We had talked about how they were shutting us down on the corners, so let's do a short and lob it in.

'It didn't go exactly as planned, but pretty darn close.'

Stunned, No. 2 North Polk (17-3) never seemed to recover and its first-ever trip to the state tournament ended, though it was anything but an easy fight. The Comets actually outshot CPU 17-11, but weren't able to get a whole lot to go on goal.

Passes by CPU were, for the most part, on target and led to its four shots on net. Outside of the nifty — perhaps, even, lucky — goal from Katcher, the Stormin' Pointers were having some degree of difficulty translating corner kicks into scoring opportunities.

Though with the type of defense the Pointers have, it didn't end up mattering a whole lot. Lauren Dufoe was again solid in goal for CPU, making two saves and helping run the defense from the box.

North Polk star Joy Smith — who had 34 goals during the regular season — was shut down by CPU and not really a factor in the game, which ended up being huge.

'The little things like communication and pure effort really add to it,' Dufoe said. 'The heart that our defenders have and just knowing they've always got each other's back really just pulls through for them.'

Saturday brings a new challenge — No. 1 seed Davenport Assumption at 11 a.m. The defending state champions have seven state titles to their name and one of the best defenses in 1A — they've allowed just nine goals all year.

Mitchell isn't awestruck and his team didn't seem to be either. It's a team CPU saw during the 2011 and 2012 state playoffs, where the Pointers fell both times.

This is a better CPU team than either of those squads, though, and there might still be a little magic left.

'We've seen them, we've faced them, we know the legacy of that program,' Mitchell said. 'But these guys are going to stay focused and do what we gotta do.'

l Comments: jordan.hansen@thegazette.com