APEX — The words could not have been chosen more perfectly than if they had been crafted by presidential speech writers, each syllable chosen to serve a specific purpose.

They could not have been truer nor put in a more succinct fashion while still encapsulating what had transpired over the course of 80 minutes at Cougar Stadium.

“We beat Apex!” exclaimed Green Hope senior Maggie McLaughlin after her team’s 2-1 win over the Cougars on April 16. Those three words expressed equal parts astonishment, pride, relief and, most importantly, joy.

Thanks to goals by senior Chelsea Garber and freshman Ashley Stokes, Green Hope did what no league opponent had done in 10 years. Apex had not lost a conference game since May 14, 1998, a span of nearly 125 games. The last time Apex lost a conference game, Green Hope High was more than a year away from opening its doors.

“It’s been long enough, that’s for sure,” said Garber, a captain and one of five seniors on the Falcons’ roster who so badly wanted to be a part of the team to finally beat Apex. “That’s the game I’ve been looking forward to all season. Beating Apex at Apex; it doesn’t get any better than that right now.”

For Apex, the loss was jarring. But coach Kevin Todd put it in perfect perspective.

“I know for our girls, they can’t see the larger picture right now,” he said. “We are still going to be tied [for the conference championship] if we win out. We still have a chance to be a No. 1 seed in the state tournament. So nothing’s really lost. The only thing that’s lost is we could have had the title sewn up tonight.”

Both teams entered what was the de facto conference championship game (see below) playing superbly since their first meeting this season. Apex won 3-2 in overtime on March 17. Apex was 6-0-1 over its next seven games, with five shutouts and a goal differential of plus-23. Green Hope was 6-0-0, with three shutouts and a goal differential of plus-29.

After 61 seconds of their second meeting, Apex’s stranglehold on the conference appeared safe. Forward Christi Kasnowski dribbled unabated down the right flank. She cut toward the goal then lofted an arching shot to the far post, putting the perfect touch on it so it would soar over the outstretched arms of Green Hope goalkeeper Kristin Westerhorstmann and then dive under the crossbar and in.

“I couldn’t believe it was happening,” said Green Hope’s Stokes.

Once disbelief cleared, it was, in a way, perfect for the story Green Hope was prepared to write. Overcoming adversity — a one-goal deficit against a team that gives up one-goal deficits about as often as it loses — was a must. To their credit, the Falcons never panicked.

“At the beginning of the game, I said the first goal may not necessarily go our way,” said Green Hope coach Bobby Peterson. “This is not going to be a one-goal game. It’s going to take more than that. That really kind of calmed them down. When we played them at our place, we managed to get two goals. I knew this was not going to be a one-goal game. These teams have got too much ability for that.”

Three minutes later, Green Hope thought it had tied the game after a mad scramble in front of the Apex goal. Somehow, Apex goalkeeper Caity Jones managed to keep the ball out of the net and her team up 1-0.

In the 23rd minute, just as Apex had surprised the Falcons with a goal after letting their guard down, Green Hope returned the favor. On a free kick from about 40 yards, Garber slung the ball toward the goal. As it reached the height of its flight and descended down, it appeared as if it was going over the frame. Jones and a few teammates were heard to say, “It’s over.”

But it wasn’t. The ball tucked itself in to the top corner of the goal and trickled down the back of net.

“I had the first free kick go over and I was thinking, oh no, not again,” said Garber, who had just a few moments earlier skied a free kick over the goal. “And then I heard her say it’s over, and I thought, wait for it, wait for it, and it fell.”

As the teams went into halftime tied, Todd knew whoever scored the next goal would have the upper hand.

“It is not a deciding factor,” he said, “but the team that is scored on will have a huge mountain to climb.”

Ten minutes into the second half, Green Hope didn’t knock Apex off its mountain-top perch, but the Falcons at least forced Apex to have to share the peak with them.

Forward Taylor Rovito, who missed the first game with Apex, sent a precise cross in from the right flank — perhaps fittingly, only a few paces away from where Kasnowski scored her goal nearly an hour earlier — and Stokes finished it off with a perfect volley.

Though in control, the Falcons knew they couldn’t sit on their one-goal lead. In that March 17 meeting, they were up 2-1 late. But Apex tied the game in the final five minutes and then won in OT.

“I wasn’t thinking, can we win this 2-1?” Peterson said. “It was a matter of thinking they’re going to come back or we’re going to score again. I would have bet, if I were a betting man, there would have been more goals after that.” In the 65th minute, there nearly was. From the top of the box, Apex’s Andie Cozzarelli made a great turn on the ball to find some space and uncorked a shot that looked good when it left her foot but crashed off the crossbar.

After that, the Falcons had their eye on the clock.

“At the end, you noticed, the last 10 minutes, it was like, OK, it could really happen. We could beat Apex,” Rovito said.

Fifteen minutes later — the last two of which lasted a lot longer than 120 seconds — it did. Green Hope beat Apex.

“You almost had to beat the specter of Apex before you could actually beat the team,” Peterson said. “We’ve been losing to those shirts for so long, you had to finally get over that hump before you realize they’re just people in those shirts doing the same thing we are. We can beat that. But that first time is always the toughest.”

It’s also the most rewarding.

Green Hope vs Apex: Par III

Had Apex won the April 16 match-up with Green Hope, the Cougars would have just about clinched their 11th straight conference championship. The win would have given them a two-game lead in the standings with four games to play, and they would have had the tiebreaker (head-to-head matchups) in their favor.

Green Hope’s 2-1 win didn’t turn the league on its head, but it did create some intrigue. Heading into Monday’s games, both teams had four matches remaining. If both win out, they will finish the regular season 13-1 in the league and share the conference title.

If that happens — and there’s a very good chance it will — then they’ll get together for a third time to determine which team gets the league’s No. 1 seed in the state playoffs. The site of that game will be decided by a coin flip. And as this season has shown, there is not a home-field advantage. In their two meetings, the visitor won.