NORMAL – It came down to penalty kicks for Heartland Community College’s women’s soccer team to earn their national title, beating Tucson, Ariz.-based Pima Community College, 4-2 to win the National Junior Collegiate Association of America’s Division III title at Wichita, Kan. HCC was the top seed in the tourney while PCC was seeded 4th. As a result, the HCC’s Hawks finished the season with a 19-0-1 mark, while PCC finished their year at 16-4-2.

The victory also marked the very first national title win for the school in that sport in school history.

“We knew from the beginning that we had a very good team,” sophomore goaltender Bekah Nielsen said. She said the team collectively felt they were making headway after a 2-1 road win over Illinois Central College Sept. 15.

HCC found themselves down to ICC 1-0 at the half, tied the game 1-all by the end of regulation and won the contest in overtime.

“We were down in that game and then we came back,” Nielsen said. “I think that was a very good turning point for us.” She said coming back in that contest showed the team that if they were down in a contest, they had the ability to come from behind to achieve a victory. For Nielsen, winning that game was an indication to her HCC had the potential to win the national championship.

HCC lost in the semis last year in a contest to Mississippi-based Holmes College that went into double overtime to resolve.

Being at HCC in his first season at the helm of this team, head coach Norman Ramos Franco said he had moments when, during their winning streak, he needed to get the team to refocus and not think too far ahead, taking one opponent at a time. He was an assistant coach for the team at the time.

HCC had two local players on their 22-player roster, both Normal Community West High School alums — sophomore goalie Bekah Nielsen and freshman forward Carla Martinez. The other players were from Texas and Florida with some international students from Spain.

“It really made me feel really secure having Bekah at goal,” Franco said. He added he always “felt secure having her at goal.” That security will require looking for another player between the pipes next season as Nielsen will graduate from HCC at the end of the year.

Of the contributions the other local girl on the team, Martinez made to the team, Franco said, “Carla is the glue to the team. She’s the very big piece to the puzzle. Offensively, when she runs and doesn’t have the ball, she opens a lot of offense space up for us.”

“Not every coach gets to be lucky enough to have the group of girls who played for me,” Franco said.

Game Action Against Puma Community College: HCC goalie Nielsen had five saves and teammate Lucia Cuadra fired 7 shots on goal, two of them getting past two goaltenders PCC used during the contest. Heartland outshot PCC by a 19-7 count during the contest.

HCC scored first as sophomore forward Lucia Cuadra scored her team’s first goal at the 4:13 mark in the first half. PCC sophomore midfielder Kaitlyn Bassett tied the contest at the 20:34 mark in the half, knotting the score at 1-1, as the game went to halftime.

PCC freshman midfielder Delaney Buntin put her team up, 2-1, at 64:47 in the second half, and was followed less than three minutes later, in the game’s 71st minute, by a second goal from HCC’s Cuadra, tying the game at 2-2, which is how the game ended forcing overtime.

During overtime, five members from each team got to make kicks in to the opponents’ net. For PCC, Freshman Midfielder/Forward Marilyn McFeaters and Sophomore Midfielder Litycia Espinoza missed their overtime kicks while their teammates, Sophomore Defender Kortney Cahill and Sophomore Midfielder/Forward Seti Valencia got their goals past HCC goalie Nielsen.

When HCC had their turn in overtime, they went a perfect 5-for-5, as freshman forward Zara Dominguez, sophomore Midfielder/Forward April Alvarez, sophomore defender Marta Gonzalez, sophomore midfielder Leslie Gutierrez, and sophomore midfielder Alicia Martinez all got the ball into the net.