It is safe to say Providence has been dominant as of late.

In the Celtics’ last two games, May 16 against Nazareth and May 19 against Crete-Monee, they had outscored their opponents 19-0 in monster wins heading into Friday’s Class 2A Kankakee Regional championship against the Kays.

But it was in the regional championship game where Providence was tested.

The Celtics were tied with the Kays in the 70th minute when Quinn Zdralevich found herself at the top of the box with the ball wide open and rocketed a shot over the outstretched arms of Kankakee’s Chloe Perez for the game’s deciding goal in a 2-1 Celtics win.

“It was really good,” Zdralevich said of her late goal. “I love having everyone just be happy after I scored, it was just a really good experience overall.”

The win gave Providence (17-4-3) its third consecutive regional championship. The Celtics will look to capture their third consecutive sectional crown at home starting with a semifinal matchup against Tinley Park on Tuesday.

“[I] haven’t ended the season with the girls without a sectional plaque,” third-year Providence coach Michael Taylor said. “We’ve lost the last two years in the supersectional, so that’s our goal [to get past that].”

The first shot on goal for Providence was a goal from Alyssa Thulin to give the Celtics a 1-0 lead in the fourth minute of action. For the next 66 minutes of gametime, Providence took 21 of its 26 shots on goal and was unable to convert on any of them.

“We all just knew that we needed to get one [goal] in,” Zdralevich said. “After we got that first goal in, even after that one, we just knew we need to get one [more].”

Meanwhile the Kays tied up the game at 1-1 after a goal by Alina Mkhwanazi in the 59th minute. The goal made Mkhwanazi the first in program history to reach 50 goals in a single season in the process.

And while that goal did not change the overall outcome of the game, it can be a program-defining goal for the Kays. That goal gave Kankakee confidence that it can compete with the best the state has to offer.

“Especially coming in as a 6-seed, it injected a whole bunch of belief that we can do it, and the girls believing that they can do it,” Kankakee coach Vincent Mkhwanazi said. “We just have to keep believing that we are as good as a program like Providence.”

Kankakee (17-3-1, 12-0 SICA) will now be without the services of program-stalwart and all-time goals leader (128) Jocelyn Sanchez. From a five-win season her freshman year to three-straight 17-win seasons including a regional championship in 2024, Sanchez has seen just about everything during her time with Kankakee, and she will be missed wearing the columbia blue and maroon.

“Anybody who’s been following, you’ll know that her freshman season was a rough one, but she trusted the process,” Mkhwanazi said. “We kept on building and building to the point where we can comfortably compete with a team that could potentially go to the state championship.”