For the past four years, the Milton girls soccer team has been on the brink.

The squad reached the Class AA quarterfinals in 2022 and 2023 before falling in the semifinals of the Class AAA bracket last year, but the Black Panthers were determined to flip the script coming into Saturday’s semifinal matchup with Selinsgrove.

They did just that, and a goal from Olivia Heise near the midway point in the second half gave Milton the narrowest of leads en route to a 1-0 victory and a berth in the District 4 Class 3A Championship.

“We’ve never been there before,” Milton coach Rod Harris said. “We’ve gotten to the quarterfinals and we lost, we got to the semifinals and we lost, so it’s great for those girls that have been here for four years playing together to earn that opportunity.”

It didn’t come easy for Milton, though, and it took a slugfest for the Black Panthers to secure their win.

While Milton outshot the Seals 15-4, a stout Selinsgrove defense anchored by goalkeeper Elizabeth Varner held the Milton offense in check for most of the first half as the teams went to halftime knotted at 0-0.

“It’s always going to be a bloodbath when you go to war with Selinsgrove,” Harris said. ” That was just a great game, but we knew how tough it was going to be going in.”

After another evenly matched first 15 minutes of the second half, the Black Panthers once again found themselves on a breakaway up the field.

Adelyn Bush found Heise around the top of the box, and the senior drove past two defenders before sending a shot home for what ended up being the winner with 26 minutes left in the game.

“I saw the goalie come out of her box a little so I was able to finish, but it was really (Bush),” Heise said. “She saw me open, she passed me a great ball and we all just worked together. We’ve been working a lot on set pieces like that in practice, and it just came together today.”

Milton continued to pepper Varner, but with about 10 minutes left, the Black Panthers went into a defensive set.

The Seals rattled off two unsuccessful corners, but a free kick near the box provided the last spark for Selinsgrove with two minutes left. Madison Merrell lined up to take the kick, and the ball sailed high above the Milton wall before hitting the front of the iron and falling straight down. Selinsgrove celebrated, but the referees signaled no goal as play rolled on.

“I was on the sideline yelling not to leave Merrell open,” Harris said. “When you do something like that, it provides an opportunity to rapidly fire shots on goal. Luckily, we were able to withstand those rapid fire shots, but it was chaos.”

When the smoke finally cleared, the Black Panthers came out on top. Milton will now take on Shikellamy, who downed No. 4 seed Athens in the second semifinal, in the District 4 Class 3A Championship at 8 p.m. on Wednesday at Danville.

For the seniors, and the roster as a whole, the excitement is palpable.

“I’m ecstatic, I haven’t been this excited for anything in I don’t know how long,” Heise said. “We’re going to play our hearts out, we’re going to give everything and we’re going to push to the finish just like we did today.

“I’m so excited to see what our team can bring.”

Milton 1, Selinsgrove 0

M-Olivia Heise (Adelyn Bush), 26:14.

Shots: M 15, S 4. Corners: M 6, S 4. Saves: M 3 (Sienna Short), S 13 (Elizabeth Varner).