For the Columbia girls soccer team, the miraculous turnaround has been completed.

Earlier this afternoon at Meadowland Park, the Red and Black girls continued their worst-to-first story with a 1-0 shutout over Union High School, in the opening round of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association North 2 Group 4 state sectional playoffs.

“I think it means a lot to them. What it really means is that we know that’s a team that tied Westfield, one of the top 3 teams in the state,” said Columbia Head Coach Stephen Jones. “So we know now that we can play with anyone.”

“I’m very, very happy,” said co-captain Sahri Ann Arena. “We all had a set goal to make it to states. We were like, alright if not states, let’s have more wins, let’s work harder as a team. I’m in total shock. We’re working so hard. I’m so proud of our team, and I really hope we go forward because we really deserve this with all the hard work we’ve done.”

A second-half goal by senior co-captain Megan Matthews was all the local girls needed to put away the visiting squad with their ninth shutout win of the season. After a ball was crossed into the goalie box, sophomore Olivia Mangan headed the ball straight up into the air. Matthews won the ball inside the box and tapped it past Union’s keeper for the score and eventual winning goal.

“It’s a whole different set of new objectives, new rules and new commitments,” Matthews said of this season‘s turnaround. “A lot of people are taking it seriously. The team is much younger, and I think a lot of the older girls that left didn’t take it as seriously. We’ve had some new girls come in and that has helped a lot.”

Union played well for most of the game and actually stood toe-to-toe with the home team in the first half. But in the second period, Columbia completely controlled play, and, after the ball hit the back of the net for Columbia, the countdown began, as these girls have been great all season long at defending leads. Overall, Columbia out-shot the visitors 10-6, with only two of those attempts coming in the second half.

“We made a slight adjustment to our two front players, which created more space on the outside for our wide midfield players to get down,” Jones said of his team‘s second half dominance. “They couldn’t handle the speed of our wide midfield players, which moved their sweeper out of their comfort zone out of the middle of the field.”

Late in the game, Cougar goaltender Amy French was fantastic, making two big saves in the final minutes of play, to help preserve the win and shutout.

“We definitely consider ourselves a second-half team, we generally come back a lot stronger in the second half,” said co-captain Erin Reynolds.

The win marks the girls' first postseason victory in over 12 years, something that has not been lost on the coach or the players on this team.

“This means a lot to the team this year and next year,” said co-captain Emma Farrow. “This means that we’ve improved so much from the previous years. We’re just getting better.”

The Cougar girls will play the winner of Hunterdon Central and North Hunterdon Central at Meadowland Park on Thursday afternoon. Based on seeding, Columbia should be favored to win, but in tournament play, nothing can be taken for granted.

“We feel pretty confident in tournament play, that however long the game goes, we will either sneak a goal, or we’ll go to penalties, and we have some very good penalty takers,” Jones said. “We’re confident. In tournament play we’re confident that we’ll get results.”

Columbia is now 9-3-4, while Union fell to 9-11-1.