At the whistle, Diaz-Bonilla sent a right-footed shot curling around the Gonzaga wall and toward the bottom right corner of the net. By the time it went skipping past the outstretched arm of the goalkeeper, Diaz-Bonilla was already running toward his school’s student section with one fist raised in celebration. This championship game, a 3-0 win for The Heights, was over.
“This kind of win starts in August,” Diaz-Bonilla said. “It starts with those two-mile summer runs, all those sprints at 8 a.m. We knew this season wasn’t going to be easy. It was going to hurt at times. But we always got up and kept playing.”
Sunday’s victory at Catholic University’s Carlini Field was a fitting finish for a dominant season from the Cavaliers. It’s the program’s second WCAC title in five years. The first was won in 2018, the year the Cavaliers officially joined the vaunted private school league.
This year’s team was carried by a group of 13 seniors, many of whom have attended the Potomac school since they were playing youth soccer.
“It’s one of the great things about The Heights,” senior goalkeeper Finian Godfrey said. “I came here in seventh grade, my center backs came in seventh and fifth grade. Our whole back line has been here forever. And there’s a difference between knowing your teammate well and trusting them completely. We’ve been through everything together.”
The experienced Cavaliers (17-1-1) have been mostly untouchable this fall, sitting atop the WCAC standings for the entirety of the regular season. They carried an undefeated record into late October but suffered a jarring 3-0 defeat at the hands of this Gonzaga team in the penultimate game of the regular season.
“That was a nice wake-up call,” Diaz-Bonilla said. “We were riding a winning streak and playing them on their senior day. We got caught on our heels. But today we were ready. We brought the fight.”
The Cavaliers looked slightly nervous and disjointed in the opening minutes of Sunday’s final but avoided giving up an early goal to the Eagles (10-4-4). Sophomore Luke Canady got The Heights on the board in the 25th minute, and the team played with confidence for the rest of afternoon. Diaz-Bonilla’s brother, Nicolas, scored the team’s second goal in the 55th minute.
“This felt like a continuation of what I’ve seen from this team all year,” Coach Colin Gleason. “They played with such maturity and composure today. I’m so overwhelmed by my pride in them.”