When it came to changing the course of history within the Pioneer High School girls soccer team, Lumumba Shabazz figured a lesson in actual history couldn't hurt.

Using Roger Bannister's quest for a 4-minute mile as inspiration, Shabazz asked his players to push for a Division I district championship, a mark that had eluded them before Saturday night.

Eighty minutes later, the Pioneers celebrated a 2-0 victory over rival Huron in a pouring rain at Saline High School, hoisting the trophy they had been aiming for all along.

Minutes later, though, Shabazz reminded the Pioneers that this was merely the first step. The next will come Tuesday in a 5 p.m. regional semifinal test against Dearborn Edsel Ford at Canton High School.

"It's great because we feel like we've really cracked the threshold," said junior forward Olivia Clark, who gave Pioneer a 1-0 lead with a goal in the 10th minute. "Now that we've been here, we can get here year after year after year. So it's really important step and it's a good win, but we're looking forward to getting to regionals now."

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Given what was at stake, Shabazz had no doubt Pioneer (13-2-3) was ready to finally shake its past. But considering who the opponent was, he feared that the Pioneers may find difficulty looking at the challenge objectively.

Clark's goal quickly sharpened the Pioneers' focus. She fielded a Margaret Nemetz pass, reaching the ball just before Huron goalie Michelle Freed. As Freed charged, Clark made a play on the ball, heading it past Freed and into the back of the net.

"I felt like if I could get there first, I had a chance," Clark said.

Pioneer's defense protected the slim one-goal lead into the second half, withstanding an early flurry of Huron scoring chances. The River Rats, who knocked off Pioneer in last year's district championship game, nearly tied the score 26 seconds into the second half when Beth Boyer slipped a shot on goal. But the shot just missed wide.

Huron's biggest chance came in the 12th minute when the River Rats got a trio of point-blank chances inside the box. Each time, Pioneer's defense came to the rescue, preserving the shutout. Pioneer's Megan Schechtman padded the lead eight minutes later on a perfect cross from Samantha Voss.

The River Rats (14-5-1) never made another serious push the rest of the way.

"I thought we got off to a great start in the second half and I knew momentum can shift a few times," Huron coach Reese Richardson said. "We knew if we were going to have a chance we were going to have to slide our backs up into the attacking end of the field and I thought we did a great job of that early.

"I thought we outplayed them the majority of the game - unfortunately, in the boxes we came up a little bit short."

The combination of Pioneer's defensive stand and Schechtman's second-half goal proved to be all the Pioneers needed to cap their district championship run. Shabazz again turned to Bannister's historic accomplishment as he congratulated his team, but just as quickly reminded his team that their race wasn't over.

Saturday night's victorious stride was a big one. Not the ultimate one.

"If you do that, you lose your physical energy and your emotional energy because you feel it's the culmination of the season," Shabazz said. "The expectation was to try and win a state championship and this one one step.

"Before I got here, I thought the story of Pioneer was that they were historical under-achievers. They get to the district final and they fail. What we wanted to do was break that psychological barrier, get over that obstacle and once the girls did that, the girls could really play without inhibitions."

Jeff Arnold covers sports for AnnArbor.com and can be reached at (734) 623-2554 or by email at jeffarnold@annarbor.com. Follow him on Twitter @jeffreyparnold.