By PATRICK CARR, Standard-Examiner
Members of the Farmington High girls soccer team celebrate after defeating Syracuse to claim the Region 1 championship outright on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022, in Syracuse.
SYRACUSE — Farmington High girls soccer won the outright Region 1 championship late Thursday night by beating Syracuse 3-2.
It’s the first time the Phoenix has won a regional soccer championship in the 6A classification. Farmington (11-5, 9-3 Region 1) won the 5A Region 5 title in 2019.
The Phoenix’s speedy senior forward Swayzee Arnell scored the game-winning goal in the 78th minute with a low shot from the top of the penalty box.
“Amazing. This was our goal from the beginning of the season, so it’s great to fulfill it,” Arnell said.
Arnell scored in the fifth minute and Taytem Grant made it 2-0 in the 29th minute with a low shot from the edge of the penalty box immediately after Syracuse (11-6, 8-4) cleared out a corner kick.
Farmington appeared to go up 3-0 in the 52nd minute, but the referees discussed it and brought the ball back for a Phoenix free kick for a foul that had happened before the goal.
Syracuse’s Cortney Cobabe scored in the 63rd minute after she ran between two defenders to give herself a clear shot, which she buried in the bottom right corner.
Cobabe later shrugged off a defender and ran down the field, sending Avery Sanders a through ball down the left side. Sanders beat the goalkeeper to the ball and sent in a low cross. A handful of players went for the ball at the near post. The ball ended up in the back of the net off Syracuse’s Brooke Vorwaller, Titans head coach Taylor Allen said.
Suddenly, a game that looked like it was 3-0 with 28 minutes left was instead 2-2 with eight minutes left.
“It was a little bit of a letdown because we played so well in the first half, kind of a kick to the gut, but when we had that break when our player got hurt, we just recovered. “We’re still in this game, we were beating them from the first minute of the game, so we can just get another goal, we’re not out of it yet,” Arnell said.
The Titans had a few scoring chances when the game was tied 2-2. Cobabe came closest with a shot from the left that landed on top of the net.
Farmington had some late throw-ins down in the Titans’ half, and a 78th-minute throw-in found Grace Quinton, who put the ball in Arnell’s path for the goal.
“I feel like they have heart and they have determination to finish to the end. We’ve been talking about ‘next three minutes’ all season and they’ve really focused on that and finishing the whole 40 minutes until the final whistle blows,” Farmington coach Sarah Beecher said.
It wasn’t the first big goal of the season for Arnell, whom Beecher called “crafty and feisty.” Earlier this year, Arnell scored golden-goal winners in 1-0 wins against both Fremont and Layton.
She also had both goals in a 2-1 win over Weber two weeks ago, two goals in a 3-1 win over Fremont, plus a goal and an assist in a 2-0 win over the Titans in the teams’ first meeting.
“I know that I need to finish the goals, my team this year has been great getting me the ball up there, so honestly it’s been a team effort. I guess I could be in the right place at the right time, but we all get it up there together,” Arnell said.
The last two weeks, Region 1 became a four-team title race between Farmington, Syracuse, Davis and Layton. The Phoenix finished 9-3 in region play and the latter three were 8-4 after Davis turned away Layton earlier Thursday.
It was one of the most competitive regional races in years in a region that’s usually pretty competitive already.
“It’s been crazy trying to figure out where we are and stuff, literally every game — who we lost to shows, too, anyone in our region can beat anyone,” Beecher said.
Both teams now look ahead to the 6A state tournament bracket release, which is scheduled for Saturday at 9 am
As of Monday, Farmington was in the No. 8 spot but has since gone 2-0 and other teams above it have gone 1-1 and 0-2, so the Phoenix could possibly move up one or more spots.
Syracuse was no. 5 on Monday and went 0-2 this week, while teams below it went 1-1 and 2-0. The top eight seeds get a first-round bye in the playoff bracket.
Connect with reporter Patrick Carr via email at [email protected], Twitter @patrickcarr_ and Instagram @standardexaminersports.
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