OOLOGAH — With the game already decided and just seconds left on the clock, most players would have been content to let time run out. But Allie Charloe was not one to settle.
The Oologah junior forward intercepted a pass inside the box in the final moments of Friday night’s contest, then blasted a right-footed shot over the goalkeeper from 10 yards out with only eight seconds remaining. The goal put an emphatic exclamation point on the Lady Mustangs’ commanding 5-0 win over McLoud in the Class 3A state quarterfinals.
The late strike was Charloe’s second goal of the night in a match where Oologah dominated from the opening whistle.
“They were talking the whole time, saying, ‘You’re only up 2, you’re only up 2,’” Charloe said. “I think that just made us want to score even more and got us fired up.”
The Lady Mustangs outshot the Lady Redskins 37-2, had two additional goals called back for offside, and forced McLoud’s goalkeeper into 14 saves. The victory advanced Oologah to the state semifinals for the third straight season.
Oologah (15-1) accomplished all of that without one of its most important players. Star midfielder Brynlee Sweet was unavailable after receiving a red card in the first-round win over Locust Grove. Sweet typically handles the Lady Mustangs’ corner kicks, forcing coach Sam Bowers to adjust on Friday.
“We run set pieces on corners,” Bowers said. “We just try to mix it up. I think that’s the old football coach in me — you run plays. We spend a lot of time on them, and I’ve always done that. We have shoe, knee, waist, head, and we make the signal, and then they run them.”
Some of the replacement corner attempts were shaky, but the adjustments worked. Oologah scored twice off corner kicks despite Sweet’s absence.
The Lady Mustangs broke through midway through the first half when Avery Duff delivered a corner kick to Avlynn Hill, who finished into the net with 29:17 remaining for a 1-0 lead.
Charloe nearly doubled the advantage later in the half with a bending shot from 15 yards, but the McLoud goalkeeper made a diving save. Six minutes later, Millie Smalygo rattled the crossbar, and Trynity McElhenny fired a shot straight at the goalkeeper after a strong setup from Charloe.
McLoud’s best chance of the first half came in the final minute, but Emily Valdez missed wide right from inside the box.
Oologah’s pressure intensified after halftime. With 34:17 remaining, Charloe danced through three defenders before slipping a perfect ground-ball cross to Rylen Walters, who finished at the back post to make it 2-0.
The Lady Mustangs appeared to score again at the 13:28 mark when Lyla Thomason delivered a ball to Hill for a header, but the goal was waved off for offside. Charloe got one back moments later anyway. The junior curled a corner kick directly on frame, and the ball bounced off the goalkeeper’s hands and into the net with 8:58 left for a 3-0 lead.
“Coach said I got 120 yards, and I kick it out of bounds,” Charloe said of Bowers’ comments after two of her corners curved out of bounds. “I’d rather have a corner a little outside the box than behind the goal, but it definitely built my confidence to get that one in the box.”
Another Oologah goal was erased on an offside call with under four minutes left, after Thomason buried a free kick from 20 yards into the right side of the net. “That was a heck of a shot,” Bowers said. “I didn’t see the signal, but the way they lined up, they had the whole front post, and she just buried it.”
The Lady Mustangs weren’t done. Maddelyn McElhenny finished a cross from Walters with 1:36 left to make it 4-0, before Charloe’s final goal capped the scoring in the closing seconds.
“It’s nice to finish out,” Bowers added. “I’m glad Allie got that at the end because you take a beating, and you keep telling them, ‘Hey, keep hanging in there.’ So it’s nice for them to get rewarded. I’m happy for them.”
Though Oologah is thrilled to return to the semifinals, the celebration comes with a bittersweet twist. The anticipated revenge match against Casady — the team that ended the Lady Mustangs’ title defense in last year’s semifinals — won’t happen after the Lady Cyclones were upset 1-0 by Regent Prep in another quarterfinal Friday night. Instead, Oologah will host the Lady Rams in the semifinals.
Regardless of the outcome, the Class 3A championship game will feature an all-eastside matchup, as Cascia Hall and Fort Gibson meet in the opposite semifinal.
“Casady had played like 13 games, and 11 of them were like 10-0, but their district wasn’t really strong,” Bowers said. “I knew Regent was a decent team, so I wanted to see what that score was. And I think for us, playing Casady would have been a little of a mental block because they ended our season last year. But we’ll come out Tuesday, and it might be ugly, but we’re gonna give it a shot. You’re one away from the championship; I don’t know how you don’t get excited about that.”
