At the stroke of midnight, this Cinderella Morgan girls soccer team found their magic slipper

It turns out that two wrongs can make a right. 

Having been fouled near the Morgan sideline 40 yards from goal, Trojans senior midfielder Macie Burton swerved a free kick in from the left flank at Zions Bank Stadium. A Judge Memorial Catholic player was ruled to have played Burton’s ball illegally. 

The referee whistled for another direct free kick from outside the Judge penalty area. Burton swung her left boot and splashed the net for a 2-1 lead. Morgan then hung on for seven frantic minutes to stun No. 1 Judge in the 3A semifinals thanks to that goal and one from junior Kapree Charlton Thursday Oct. 24. 

And on Saturday Oct. 26, the Utah Tech University signee Burton belted a free kick from 40 yards away to give the Trojans a 1-0 lead. Ogden would answer on a penalty kick to level it at 1-1 in the second half. 

For three days at Zions Bank Stadium, the Trojans’ leading scorer Lacie Poll was unable to find her usual goal-scoring groove. 

But, on a corner kick she launched late in the second half in the 3A championship game, the senior and Idaho State University verbal commit’s whole world and that of her Morgan teammates changed when sophomore Kendall Peterson redirected Poll’s floater into Ogden’s net for what would be the game-winner and title clincher. 

What’s ironic about the semifinal and championship is that an underclass woman came to the Trojans’ aid in each game. 

At the time of Morgan’s first goal in the 3A semifinal, there were exactly 38 seconds left in the first half. A giant scoreboard clock cast a shadow in the penalty area junior Kapree Charlton was entering.

It had been a chilly first half from Morgan, but a shot that bounced off the Judge goalkeeper’s arm rolled into the path of Charlton, who managed to side-foot it while she was off-balance. The ball spun into the net to tie the game at 1-1 going into halftime. 

It may have been the Trojans first shot on target of the game, but it counted just the same against Judge.

The other irony: at the time of Burton’s goal that sent the Trojans into the 3A championship game, the Morgan High senior was sitting on a yellow card for persistent infringement.

For most players, that would have led to less of an effort to avoid that second yellow and subsequent ejection from the game. Not Burton: the senior just turned the pressure up on Judge’s top players, drawing two fouls in her team’s favor in the process. 

When Morgan avenged three years of postseason losses to Ogden Saturday morning by winning its first 3A state title since the 2020-21 season, it was never easy, either. 

Both Judge and Ogden made life difficult for the Trojans this past weekend, but Morgan prevailed because it would not quit, no matter what amount of time was left on the clock and whether players were dealing with some level of adversity. 

In all, this Trojans state championship-winning team will graduate four seniors: Burton, Poll and Emma Toone and Macey Miller. But it will forever be remembered as one team. 

In other news, the 1-seed Trojans football team will open their state title chase this Friday in the 3A quarterfinals when they host No. 9 Canyon View. λ