Wando hoping to reverse the curse

Reverse the Curse.

That's the Wando girls' soccer team's goal when the Warriors play Mauldin in today's Class AAAA state championship match.

No team has ever won Spring Valley's Viking Cup to begin the season and the state championship to end the season.

"We have three goals," Wando coach Shannon Champ said. "One is to win back-to-back state championships. Another is to win the state championship with no controversy. The third is to win the Viking Cup and state championship. No other school has done that.

"I'm very superstitious and so is the team," she added. "But we talk about the curse. I use it as a motivator. At the beginning of the season I told the girls no Wando team had won the Viking Cup, and we ended up winning. Now, I tell them we're going to make history by being the first team to win the Viking Cup and the state championship in the same year."

The Warriors, 24-1 and 48-3-2 the past two seasons, go after their second straight state championship and fifth in school history when they play the Mavericks at 7 p.m. at the University of South Carolina's Stone Stadium. The Warriors are the No. 1 team in the state and face a young team that is getting better every day. The Mavericks won only five of their first 10 games, but have rebounded to post a 19-6 record.

"I know they got off to a rough start, and they made it a lot farther than people thought," Champ said. "They're a young team with some good club players. They had to go on the road (in the playoffs) and won. That says a lot about their talent, their character."

The Mavericks face a team with a great keeper and defense: Wando has not allowed a goal in the last seven playoffs games.

Champ says keeper Jade Davis is very athletic and explosive. "But she hasn't been tested this year because the defense around her has been good. I have confidence that Jade can get the job done if we do have a few breakdowns."

The Warriors defeated Lexington 1-0 in last year's championship, a match that will be remembered for its controversy. With 2:09 left in the match, Champ realized she had one too many players on the field. She notified one of the officials of the mistake. Champ said the 12th player was on the field for a brief time. Lexington contended the player was on the field for most of the second half. The Warriors were booed loudly when they received the championship trophy, and a couple of empty bottles were thrown from the stands onto the field.

"Another motivating factor was to get back there and win it again after the way things went down last year," said Champ, who owns a 68-7-2 record in three years at the helm of the program.