Even though the Perryville girls soccer team had its 2025 season come to an end in the first round of the district tournament, two Pirates were still named as some of the top players in the state.
Bringing home Class 2 All-State honors for Perryville this spring were senior defender Caroline Gremaud (first team) and junior forward Ava Ernst (second team). These two led the Pirates to an eight-win season with some impressive victories over bigger Class 3 schools like Cape Central, Farmington, Festus and North County.
Gremaud helped Perryville’s defense produce a total of four shutouts through 16 games, while Ernst was one of the leading scorers in all of Southeast Missouri with a total of 70 points off 29 goals and 12 assists.
Ernst described her junior year as a challenging one since she and her teammates didn’t even know if they would have a season to start out with. This was due to damage to the school suffered from the tornado back in March.
On top of that, the Pirates also had to deal with several injuries throughout the season. Despite an 8-8 overall finish and no postseason victory, Ava is still proud of what her team overcame to have a season at all.
“To be honest, I wasn’t really expecting to be named all-state just because of the team this year, and all the hard things we faced by coming into the season with a lot of injuries,” Ernst said. “Being able to just get all-state even when we didn’t even win a game in districts — it’s just kind of like all the hard work that I did put in during the off-season paid off, especially since I’m just a junior. Then seeing one of my senior friends [Gremaud] get it just makes me proud that we did do that.”
Their commitment to excellence started in the offseason when Ernst and Gremaud would travel 20 minutes outside of Perryville to work with a personal trainer two to three times a week. There, they did some difficult core weight training, among other workouts, to be as prepared as possible for this season.
Gremaud will continue her soccer career at Jefferson College, while Ernst, who recently competed at a camp at Indiana State, has aspirations of playing college soccer as well.
“This was our last year playing with each other, so we really wanted to give it our all,” Ernst said. “From weightlifting here at home, and we would go to the fields to train, too. Putting in all that work was really easy for us because we also really get along and are pretty good friends.”
Along with her talent, one of the main reasons why Ernst scored a career-high 70 points this year was due to moving from the midfield to primarily playing forward. Ava had to do so because of all the injuries Perryville sustained.
Ernst was mainly a midfielder as a freshman and spent time between the two positions her sophomore year. Despite all the success she had, like scoring 12 goals in one week, it was still a learning curve for Ernst, but one she more than conquered.
“After the injuries, I was the only forward for the rest of the season,” Ava said. “I knew that it wasn’t really all on me, but I really needed to step it up. As I started playing forward, I enjoyed it and it helped develop me as a player to be able to not only rely on myself but my other players, too.”
Another way Ernst has improved her skills on the pitch over the past five years is by playing club soccer up in St. Louis with Scott Gallagher Premier.
This summer, Ava helped Scott Gallagher reach the National Presidents Cup in Tampa, Fla. Ernst and her team were thought of as the “underdogs” and that they shouldn’t have ever been able to qualify for nationals in the first place by other clubs. However, they beat the top team up in Kansas City for the Presidents Cup State Championship to move to regionals, where they beat the same team to reach nationals.
“It’s good to have that under our belt and let them know, ‘Yeah, we may be the underdogs, but we know we have chemistry on our team and know how to work together,” Ava said. “We are all super excited that we are coming into [nationals] as the underdogs, and here we are taking a national spot ticket to go.”
With their honors, Ernst and Gremaud have continued the rich tradition of Perryville girls soccer, having all-state selections. This most recently includes the likes of Anna Moll and Ashlynd Yamnitz in 2024, Rachel Riney and Alysaa King in 2023 and Anna Gremaud, Brooklyn Moll and Kyla Schnurbusch from the 2022 Class 2 fourth-place team.
For a player like Ernst, she’s proud that her hometown of Perryville can continually produce elite soccer talent and that she’s more than a part of this trend.
“It’s amazing that we can go and do that even from my freshman year,” Ava said. “Playing with those seniors and then just knowing that their names are in the past now. I still enjoy knowing that, like, ‘Hey, I played with these girls too,’ and just being able to win a district title and a conference title almost every year.
“It’s just really cool that a small town like Perryville could do that.”
