Xavier beats Union, 2-1, for 5th 1A title in row

Members of the Xavier soccer team sing along with a stereo as they kill time during a rain delayed halftime of their game in the Class 1A Final of the 2010 Girls State Soccer Tournament against Union Saturday, June 12, 2010 in Muscatine. Xavier leads the game 2-1 at the half. (Brian Ray/ SourceMedia Group News)

Xavier's Kat Mettenburg (3) collides with Union goal keeper Whitney Blunt allowing teammate Annie Dale (not pictured) to score on the play during the first half of their game in the Class 1A Final of the 2010 Girls State Soccer Tournament Saturday, June 12, 2010 in Muscatine. Xavier leads the game 2-1 at the half. (Brian Ray/ SourceMedia Group News)

MUSCATINE - They danced. They sang. They danced and sang some more.

The Cedar Rapids Xavier Saints won. Again.

“Six in a row!” junior defender Kelsie Sargent shouted to her teammates, moments after Xavier won its fifth consecutive Class 1A state girls' soccer championship Saturday afternoon, 2-1, over La Porte City Union. “Gotta go for six in a row!”

Let them celebrate “one for the thumb” a little while before they start working on their second hand. It was Xavier's sixth soccer title, a state record.

Getting back to celebrations, Xavier (22-0) had a nice one during a two-hour rain and lightning delay following the first half. One of the players hooked her iPod up to portable little speakers and everyone ... well, danced and sang.

The song “When The Saints Come Marching In” was one of the tunes the girls went the most wild for.

“We just danced a lot and got crazy,” said senior midfielder Ali Ungs. “I think that just prepared us more because we wanted (the win) so much more. We just wanted it to be over and have the championship.”

“It was really fun,” said sophomore forward Annie Dale, whose late first-half goal was the difference. “We tried to make it the best. This was our last game coming out as a team, so we tried to make it the best (experience) possible.”

It actually was Union (22-1) that got the game's first goal, as forward Noel Mahood ignored an ankle injury that sidelined her for her team's semifinal win Friday over Dallas Center-Grime and headed in a ball off a direct kick with 12:10 left in the first half.

Xavier responded just 1:14 later, with Lauren Konchar tapping in a ball at the far goal post after teammate Kayla Armstrong lofted a shot/pass from the other side of the net over Union keeper Whitney Blunt. With just under five minutes left, Blunt collided with a Xavier player while coming offline to play a ball, with the ricochet ending up directly on Dale's foot.

Then it was two hours of rain, signing and dancing, 40 more minutes of soccer and another championship. Goal-scoring machine Darian Powell hit the crossbar on a direct kick from just outside the box with 1:06 left in the second half to represent Union's best chance at a tie.

“That was so close,” Mahood said. “That pretty much was our last chance ... The second half, we definitely gave them a run for their money. The first half, I don't think we did. They dominated.”

“I thought one of the key changes (in the game) was when they scored, and we had that quick turnaround (goal),” Xavier Coach Doug Graham said. “We had the confidence to come right back.”

A six-peat would seem to be realistic for Xavier, considering only there are only three senior starters (Ungs, forward Kat Mettenburg and midfielder Colleen Bouchard. Union also only had three senior starters and sophomore Powell returns after 131 goals her first two years on varsity.

“This is incredible,” Ungs said. “Every time, it just gets better and better. This year, with it being our last year of soccer at Xavier, I'm so, so happy to get this one. The pressure was crazy and everything, but I think we really came through and became closer as a team. That made us want this even more.”

Here is a short postgame interview with Dale, who was named the captain of the 1A all-tournament team: