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Incarnate Word Wins Class 3 Girls Soccer, Trinity Class 1 Runner Up
BY JIM WIENERS
Incarnate Word Academy, an all-girls high school, finished the 2009 soccer season the opposite way it finished, and the result was a Class Three State Championship in the first season of three-class Girls Soccer.
IWA began the season with three wins and five losses. The Red Knights finished the season with 13 straight victories which started April 18 against Blue Valley North West (Ill.) and ended June 6 against Lee’s Summit North. The streak began and ended at the same facility, the Anheuser-Busch Center in Fenton.
The run to the state title, their second straight and their ninth in the sport (a Missouri State High School Activities Association record), gives IWA 22 state titles won in three sports which also includes 11 in volleyball and two in basketball. Incarnate’s streak to the state soccer title includes two wins this year over St. Joseph’s Academy, a team they beat in last year’s Class Two title game and in this year’s Class Three-District Seven title game, two over Hazelwood West, including the sectional round, and a quarterfinal win over previously unbeaten Nerinx Hall, who defeated IWA on April 15.
“It is an amazing adventure,” said IWA head coach Annie Beekman, “we grew strong from it. Our strength is our composure-our kids kept going and going.”
The road for 16-5 IWA to their ninth title, the first in Class Three, began at home with District Seven wins over Ladue-Horton Watkins (2-0) and St. Joe (4-2) the continued at the A-B Center with wins over Hazelwood West (3-2), Nerinx Hall (1-0), Glendale (Springfield) (5-1) and Lee’s Summit North (2-1 on penalty kicks). Junior midfielder Kelly Gravlin led IWA in goals scored with eight including two on June 5 against Glendale and was one of five players who scored penalty kicks in the June 6 title game against Lee’s Summit North, who scored four, after the two teams played two overtimes with a 1-1 tie.
“You got to read the body,” Junior goalkeeper Jodi Chapi, who stopped Lee’s Summit North senior Grace Cross’ penalty kick-the first and only stop of the penalty-kick session, said. “I was lucky.” Senior defender Kiersten Mottl, whose penalty kick secured the state title for the Red Knights, said “it always sucks to win in P-Ks but we’ll take the win.”
Meanwhile Trinity Catholic (18-10) got to their first state title game since the school began in 2003 after the St. Thomas Aquinas-Mercy-Rosary merger, lost the Class One championship to Perryville-St. Vincent, 3-1. The Titans road to state began at home in District Four with wins over Lutheran-St. Charles County (1-0) and Orchard Farm (5-0) then continued at the A-B Center with a quarterfinal win over Whitfield (1-0) and a semifinal win over Springfield Catholic (2-0). Trinity started the season with eight straight wins, nine out of their first 10, then lost eight out of 11 including four straight before winning four out of their last five.
Trinity started five freshman, two sophomores, two juniors and two seniors. “We had a great year,” said athletic director and head coach Vince Drake, who had three boys teams since 2003 finished second in state including last fall in Class One. St. Vincent, who won their first girls soccer title and their fifth in all sports, “wanted it a little more,” said Drake.
While Trinity’s boys teams had more chances to win at their title games the Titan girls team two weeks ago was totally outplayed in the title game by St. Vincent, especially with a 2-0 halftime lead. “It seemed St. Vincent was a step ahead,” Drake said, “my hat goes off to them-they kept on attacking. If it wasn’t for (sophomore goalkeeper) Taylor (Zerbe, who made several key saves against St. Vincent) it could have been worse.”
Freshman forward Jenn Eaton, who scored a goal against Whitfield May 28, Springfield Catholic June 5 and St. Vincent June 6, and senior midfielder Alicia Vonderheid, who scored a 30-yard bomb against Springfield Catholic, shared the Titan lead in goals with 15 each. Eaton was injured late in the Class One title game and had to be helped to midfield to receive her runner up medal.
