STA Girls' Soccer 2023

  Game 4:  (4-0-0); EKL (1-0-0) 31 March vs. BV Northwest (4-1) 2023 STATS Saints ranked 6th in the country in the United Soccer Coaches Poll The championship turned out to be quite an entertaining soccer match, full of several great attacks, wonderful defensive plays, and just great, great goalkeeping by both sides. It took the Saints 6-7 minutes to settle in, but then they started holding possession and fiercely attacking the Huskies goal—Karani was fun to watch as she turned so many good attempts away.  But after about twenty-five minutes, the match became pretty much a back and forth battle that had both goalkeepers active with their feet and their hands—just an entertaining evening of soccer. Check out this Payne save . And the second half was pretty darn even.  The Saints did come away with a 4-1 win, and without Karani, we would have undoubtedly scored more, but Maggie Payne also made some key saves for the Saints and the Huskies built some nice...

  Game 3:  (3-0-0); EKL (1-0-0) 29 March vs. Park Hill (3-0) 2023 STATS Saints ranked 6th in the country in the United Soccer Coaches Poll The Mo-Kan semis was a tale of 2 halves—the first competitive, the second not so much. We also go a glimpse of what it looks like if a team tries to mark Sydney out of the match. Park Hill put four shots on goal in the first half, playing pretty evenly with the Saints. We did lead 1-0, and perhaps, you could argue the early Watts' goal was not offsides, but it was called offsides. Second half the girls came out blazing. Yes, we put 6 shots on goal, but we also earned six corners kicks to the lone one we generated in the first half. And second half, we saw the match we have become accustomed to—the ball living on our side of the field. Park Hill earned a late corner to go along with one shot all half, and it was not on goal. Our midfield did a much better job in the second half of controlling the midfield, and that allowed us to ho...

  Game 2:  (2-0-0); EKL (1-0-0) 27 March vs. Notre Dame de Sion (6-1) 2023 STATS The Saints home opener happened to be the first round of one of the top tourneys in the Midwest—The Bob Durig Memorial Mo-Kan.  We opened with Sion, who were coming off a 0-0 draw with 6A power, Olathe West. And they did attempt a similar approach against us, keeping 10 behind the ball most of the first half, looking to counter to their star freshman. The problem with that strategy tonight was that we put in a goal a minute into the match, and then we added a couple of more before half. So not really much drama could play out in the match. Sion spent very little time on our half of the field for the first 54 minutes. Early in the second half Watts pushed a second ball across to the back post on the multi-touch corner for a Brooklyn Marn head-in at the 24:50 mark to make it 5-0. All but 3 or 4 of the starting lineup left the match for good at that point. Sion did get the ball forward...

Game 1:  (1-0-0); EKL (1-0-0) 23 March vs. Blue Valley North (3-0) 2023 STATS Despite the match being an opening game with Spring Break wiping out lots of practice days, the Saints came out pretty darn sharp in those first 30 minutes.  About 16 in, Cabantac made a conscious effort to come away with a corner ( Check it out )while dribbling at the baseline.  That effort lead to the first goal of the season as Sydney put the corner right on Andi's head for a great goal. The second goal illustrated a perfect give-and-go between Marn and Watts.  And our third goal also came on a corner. Two corners in the half, and two goals off them. We had just missed a goal earlier in the match on a great build down the right side with a diagonal ball played from Brooklyn through a Cabantac dummy for a shot wide—just great soccer ( Check it Out! ). Although North was not particularly dangerous when they were in the front third of the field, they ...