TOWN AND COUNTRY — The St. Vincent Lady Indians advanced to the state final four tournament with a 1-0 win over the Westminster Christian Academy Wildcats on Saturday.
The Westminster offense dominated possession early in the game, but the Lady Indians’ defense held strong and stopped several chances by the Wildcat strikers in the first half, including three chances off corner kicks that were cleared and two early shots on goal that were saved by Lady Indians goalkeeper Chloe House.
The momentum began to shift towards St. Vincent early in the second half, when senior Lana Adams just missed a free kick in the 44th minute. Another Adams chance was saved a minute later, before freshman Morgan Schnurbusch scored the go-ahead goal in the 48th minute to give the Lady Indians the lead. Sloane Wibbenmeyer was given an assist on the score.
“It feels amazing,” Schnurbusch said of the goal. “I could not have done it without my teammates and the big assist from Sloane.”
Westminster ramped up the offensive pressure with four shots on goal in the final 30 minutes of the match, but the St. Vincent defense remained strong. With just over 10 minutes remaining, the Wildcats had their strongest opportunity to tie the match, but a save in goal from House kept the clean sheet alive and the defense kept the ball away from the Westminster strikers in the closing minutes to seal the win for the Lady Indians.
St. Vincent head coach Cari Barnes was impressed with how her team bounced back after a slow first half, and how her team rallied around each other after a first half injury to senior Rylee Robinson.
“We came out very flat, not playing our game, on our heels, just waiting for things to happen,” Barnes said. “That’s not our game. So in my opinion, we got a little lucky to come out of half without a score. And then watching our center back, who’s been the core of our defense for every year of her four-year career, go down, that was just pretty much our halftime talk. This isn’t her last game. We’re not going to let her career end on this. So I think a lot of it was just digging deep for her.”
Barnes was impressed with how her younger players stepped up with a trip to the state championship on the line, with both the go-ahead goal and game saving stop in goal both being made by freshmen.
“Well done for both of them,” Barnes said. “They’re both underclassmen but they’ve both played great for us all season. So I think they dug deep. They knew what it took and I am just super proud of them for getting it done.”
St. Vincent will return to the state championships to play for a state title over the weekend, with a semifinal game set for Friday. Barnes said the disappointment from a year ago should motivate the Lady Indians to prepare hard and be ready for this year’s tournament.
“I hope it’s just the fire that we didn’t have the outcome we wanted last year,” Barnes said.” I hope we come back just digging deep because we don’t want second this year we want first. If we’re going to work this hard and get there, let’s finish it and get the job done.”
St. Vincent is set to play in the semi-final game against the 19-2 Clayton Greyhounds on Friday at 2:30 p.m. The winner will advance to the final, to be played on Saturday at 4 p.m. Games will be played at the World Wide Technology Soccer Park in Fenton.
