FAYETTEVILLE -- Siloam Springs' girls soccer team now stands alone in the Arkansas record book.
Siloam Springs became the first girls soccer team in state history to win five consecutive state championships Friday after defeating Benton 1-0 in the 6A championship game at Razorback Field on the campus of the University of Arkansas.
The 2018 championship trophy joins the titles won in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017.
The current group of Siloam Springs seniors won the last four of these titles, having won every time they've played at Razorback Field.
"It's awesome for our seniors to know that every time they stepped on this field that they won," said Siloam Springs coach Brent Crenshaw. "Also they didn't lose a game at home this year, so that's got to be an awesome experience for these seniors."
Senior Megan Hutto scored Siloam Springs' lone goal in the 29th minute in the first half.
Hutto had had a one-on-one opportunity stuffed by Benton goalkeeper Jayme Selph, but the ball bounced away into the corner. Siloam Springs freshman Madison Race served it back in, and it deflected off a Benton defender right to Hutto, who scored her 29th goal of the year with 11:10 left in the first half.
Hutto earned state championship Most Valuable Player honors, which she also earned as a freshman in 2015 after Siloam Springs beat Searcy 1-0 to win the the championship. Hutto's senior teammate Audrey Maxwell won the MVPs in 2016 and 2017, but she was lost for the 2018 season with a torn ACL.
"I feel like if Audrey was still here, she would have done her thing and gotten it," Hutto said. "I'm really just proud of us today and how we played the whole state tournament. We played so hard. I know it was really tight. I got really scared and tired. It was our last game together, so we had to keep going and keep pushing and want it more."
Siloam Springs -- which defeated Benton 5-2 in the 6A-West Conference title game on May 6 -- survived an early Benton onslaught at the start of the game. Benton (16-5) outshot Siloam Springs (22-3-2) in the early going, but goalkeeper Sydney Bomstad was there to make the saves.
"If we could have gotten a goal in the first eight to 10 minutes it could have been a different game," said Benton coach Jason Gentry. "But we proved to ourselves right there that we could play with them. A lot of people were saying Siloam Springs is the greatest team ever. They're really good obviously, but we can play with them. We needed to prove that to ourselves early."
Bomstad had three saves in the first 10 minutes of the game,
Momentum began to swing to Siloam Springs midway through the first half, giving the Lady Panthers more opportunities to score.
Freshman Macie Herrell -- one of four freshmen that played siginificant minutes on Friday -- had a rocket shot bang off the cross bar in the 24th minute, and Siloam Springs had a goal that was called back for offsides just a short time after.
Following Hutto's goal, the Lady Panthers had other chances in the first half but just couldn't get another score across.
"We knew it would be a tough battle," Crenshaw said. "Benton's got a good team, good players. ... I knew that they would play hard. We were able to withstand the first 10 to 15 minutes. That was huge. We controlled the game. We couldn't finish goal number two. I think we had plenty of chances, we just couldn't finish."
In the second half, Siloam Springs opted for a defensive gameplan and held off Benton's attacks. Led by seniors Bomstad, Meghan Kennedy, Brooklyn Buckminster and junior Hailey Dorsey, the defensive shutout was Siloam Springs' 14th of the season.
"It's unbelievable," Kennedy said. "I'm just so thankful to the Lord so much for how he's blessed us. It's been such a long process of high school soccer and for us to win five is just truly incredible and an indescribable feeling."
It was an impressive performance for Benton, after getting beat by three goals at Siloam Springs in the conference championship game. Benton was making its first state title game appearance in school history.
"Man I'm so proud of my girls," Gentry said. "No one thought this was going to happen. But we believed that it would happen. We worked all week on doing exactly what we did today. We had one little breakdown, but that's not the big thing. The big picture is we got here and we literally fought our guts out up until the very last second. I'm so proud of these girls, it's unreal."
Sports on 05/20/2018