Troy girls soccer held their breathes the final week of the regular season as they watched their chances at an eighth straight league title fall to a trickle. Still, the flame wasn't out, and this past week things proceeded just how they needed them to.

Athens used a late goal to beat Wellsboro, 2-1, then the Hornets got revenge with a 2-0 win over Athens on the final day of the season.

The Wildcats fell to one game behind Wellsboro and Troy, and Troy owned the head-to-head tie-breaker on the Hornets - they tied the first time, then Troy won the second game.

"We definitely were nervous," Jaylee Ward said. "We couldn't do anything about it, we just hoped, and we just left it up to them, and it was an amazing feeling to watch them help us out."

If Wellsboro won out last week they'd been league champs, while if Athens won their final three games - they took the first two - they'd been league champs.

"It's feels amazing," Mallory Chamberlain said. "We worked hard, and it just all came out in the end."

The Trojans opened league season as strongly as they finished last year, winning their first five games by a combined score of 19-2.

That was after they lost their first two non-league games of the year.

"It was hard," Chamberlain said about their start to the season before league play. "For the past couple of years we've just always gone right int it, but we came back working very hard."

Then came the first misstep, a 1-1 tie with Wellsboro, but that was followed by wins over NEB and Williamson.

Then came their first league loss in several seasons, a 4-1 defeat to Athens. Two games later Wyalusing blanked them 3-0, and it seemed like they might be done for good.

"It was definitely a tough part of our season," Giana Renzi said. "We knew that we had to refocus, and not focus on the past, but focus on our future, and just take it one game at a time."

For Troy that began in practice.

"We took practices a little more seriously - we were going to play in the game like we did in practice - and just focused on the things we needed to work on," added Renzi.

Despite falling to third in the league standings Troy knew they could only look forward.

"There was nothing we could do to change our mistakes," said Chamberlain. "We just focused on the future."

Their first sign that they bounced back was a 1-1 tie with Montoursville, then came a 2-1 win over Wellsboro on the road.

"That felt amazing," said Renzi. "I think we all showed up that night, and really played as a team and gave it our all. It felt really nice to beat them that night."

They ended the regular season by holding an NEB upset bid, 2-1, then the watching began.

"We just stayed focused," Ward said about the win. "We lost those two games but we still wanted to just give it our all, and we didn't quit, even when we were struggling to get going when we lost, we just kept going."

Renzi and Ward will end their soccer careers as 4-time league champs.

"It feels amazing just knowing all the hard work it took to get there," said Renzi. 

Now they'll focus on trying to get back to the state playoffs as they start district play this week, beginning with Montoursville on Wednesday down at Balls Mills with an 8 p.m. start.

"We're just going to work on teamwork," said Chamberlain. "Touches, working up to that level to prove ourselves again."