CedarBridge Academy Ladies Wildcats cleaned up at the Disney President’s Day Soccer Festival in Orlando, Florida.

The team went undefeated en route to clinching the under-17 girls’ title at the first attempt, with guest player Nia Christopher earning the golden boot for a tournament high ten goals and sharing MVP honours with team-mate Teyha Lindo.

CedarBridge edged past Nirvana FC, of New York, in yesterday’s final at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex, with Deshae Darrell, the team captain, scoring the winner 20 seconds into the second half after some good approach work involving several passes.

“Nirvana carried the threat better than us in the first half,” Levar Bassett, the team coach, said. “But we made some adjustments at the half and the girls sorted it out and played excellent in the second half.

“These girls have done the island very proud. They held their cool, played together and some of the football was very pretty to watch at times.”

CedarBridge’s squad contained three players from Berkeley Institute, including the tournament’s leading scorer and joint MVP Christopher.

“This is the first time CedarBridge has competed in this event and we had injuries and so we invited three players from Berkeley,” Bassett added.

CedarBridge cruised into the semi-finals after winning all of their group matches against defending champions Pinellas Country, 4-2, Lake Country Neon, 5-0, and EHSC from Canada, 3-1.

They reached the final after beating South Orlando 4-3 in a penalty shoot-out in the semi-final where Micah Pond, the goalkeeper, made several good saves. The two teams remained deadlocked at 1-1 after extra time.

“That was our most exciting game and Micah made two saves in the penalty shoot-out and we won,” said Bassett, who was assisted by fellow CedarBridge coach Antoine Augustus and Shantel Deshields, who coaches at Berkeley Institute.

“It might sound kind of crazy, but we celebrated more after the semi-final than the final because we were the walking wounded.”

The victorious team return home tomorrow.

CedarBridge: Micah Pond, Deshae Darrell, Nia Christopher (Berkeley), Danielle Foote, Taznae Fubler, Saphyre Hunt, Teyah Lindo, Symira Lowe-Darrell, Jazae Smith (Berkeley), Jadae Steede-Hill (Berkeley), Jade Steward, Jahdiah Symonds.