03-04-2025
Heritage's Marcial and Aquinas' Hantak are the Broward Girls' Soccer Coaches of the Year
St. Thomas Aquinas and American Heritage have long been the standard in girls' soccer in South Florida.
In recent years, Heritage has been on one of the more memorable state championship runs in recent memory.
And Aquinas, which still holds the most state titles in state history with 15, is inching closer to adding more to its trophy case.
Heritage coach Cindy Marcial directed her squad to its third consecutive state championship and even greater heights as the Patriots went wire-to-wire as the nation's No. 1-ranked team.
And at Aquinas, Hantak helped the Raiders reach the state championship game in Class 6A and achieve a top 10 national ranking as well.
As such, Marcial and Hantak are the Miami Herald's Broward County Girls' Soccer Coaches of the Year.
Marcial earns the honor for Classes 4A-1A after leading the Patriots to a 19-1 record and their 14th state title overall.
Marcial has been a part of eight of those championships as head coach and this will be the first mythical national title won by Heritage since 2005.
American Heritage's dominance was even more evident in the postseason where it beat all five regional and state opponents by a combined score of 30-0. The Patriots shut out their final 11 opponents.
Marcial also recently won the Florida Dairy Farmers Association's State Coach of the Year award.
'We are all about tradition and we want to keep it going,' Marcial said.
Aquinas nearly had its own dominant season end with a state championship after outscoring their own four playoff opponents 20-0 on the way to the state final. But the Raiders found themselves in a battle with St. Johns Bartram Trail and finished with a deflating 4-3 loss in overtime.
Aquinas, however, returns several starters including Miami Herald 7A-5A Player of the Year Sophie Barnes, which should give it a great chance to make another run.
'It was a great game and Bartram is a great team,' Hantak said after the state final loss. 'We were looking forward to playing them all year and now we will look forward to playing them again next year.'
