Duluth East Girls Soccer Snaps 14
DULUTH, Minn.- Five prep Northland soccer teams will get the chance to compete at the state tournament next weekend.
Out of the five, the longest wait goes to the Duluth East girls soccer squad.
On Tuesday, the Greyhounds snapped a 14-year drought when they took down Centennial 1 to 0 in the Section 7AAA title game.
A 12-game winning streak that resulted in a trip to the state tourney.
Head Coach Steve Polkowski says the belief grew for his team after a few early losses in the season to some tough cities squads.
"We played Stillwater and Wayzata at the beginning of the year to see where we were at. While we lost both of those games, we didn't get blown out to sea. When we can compete with Wayzata and Stillwater, even though we lost, it brought a lot of confidence to the group. Then you go into a couple of games where it isn't Wayzata and Stillwater and you have a lot of success. All of a sudden the next thing you know, you're rattling off twelve games in a row. It started with a couple of competitive losses and it just kind of built from there," said Polkowski.
The Greyhounds know though that the job isn't done and there are 3 wins to go.
"Once we do something good, like when we score, the whole team's attidude changes. So I'd say we probably need to score as fast as we can because it's always discouraging if we get scored on. I think we need to go into the game with confidence and I think we'll do fine," added sophomore Lilly Kuettel.
This will be the 8th state tournament appearance in program history for the Greyhounds.
'They'll find out their first round opponent on Saturday.
