- November 5, 2024
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Christen Barney doesn’t make promises she can’t keep.
Last Tuesday after beating DeLand, Barney, a junior forward on Flagler Palm Coast’s girls soccer team, promised she would lead her team to a win over University in the District 2-5A championship game.
Two goals, a ton of chances and a huge smile later, she did just that. But her work is just getting started, she says.
FPC (16-6-4) will host Mandarin 7 p.m. Thursday, in the Class 6A regional quarterfinals after blanking University, 5-0, in the district title game. The Lady Bulldogs have now won back-to-back district titles.
And if things go as expected, FPC and Fletcher would meet again for the sixth straight year in the state playoffs. (Fletcher will host University in the first round.)
But Barney, the team’s lone junior captain, is just a microcosm of the team as a whole, coach Pete Hald said.
“They want it,” Hald said. “They’re really craving the win, and we’ve been lacking that. We’ve always been good the last three or four years, but that killer instinct, ‘I want to beat you by five goals.’”
That hasn’t been there all year, though, Hald said.
In mid-December, just before the winter break, FPC competed in the Julie Weber Memorial Classic, in Lake Mary. Several top teams were there, and FPC was battling the injury bug — something Hald’s side has been in a dogfight with all season. (In fact, Friday’s district championship game was the first time Hald had two of his starting defenders on the field at the same time.)
“After that (tournament), we started turning it around a bit,” Hald said. “The three seniors, they don’t want it to end. And Christen (Barney) is really leading the juniors.”
Barney said it can be difficult being the only junior captain, but her team takes her seriously even though she is younger than the other three captains.
“I enjoy it because I’m younger, so I have another year with these girls,” Barney said. “Now that I’m a captain with them winning this district championship, I can help them next year. We’re such a young team.”
Actually, Barney has won two straight district titles. And on the field, she has been nearly unstoppable. She netted five goals in two games in the district tournament, upping her season total to 21.
“Christen Barney is just a terror out there, and she’s so hard to deal with,” Hald said.
Barney and the Lady Bulldogs hope to continue their dominant play in the state playoffs, where they hope to meet Fletcher.
Barney has at least one more promise, too: “It’s always a hard fight against Fletcher, because they’re such a good team,” she said. “But this year, we’re not going to let them (beat us). We’re going to beat Mandarin, and we want to play Fletcher, so it’s a lot of motivation to beat Mandarin.”
For more photos from Friday's district championship game, click HERE.
