The accolades continue to roll in for the St. Vincent Lady Indians Soccer program after its 21-3 season, with several all-state selections recently announced.
The team finished second in the final Missouri Soccer Power Rankings in class two. Four players were selected to the All-State team. Aubrey Emmendorfer and Sloane Wibbenmeyer were named as honorable mentions. Rylee Robinson and Lana Adams were named All-State first team players.
Adams, who has already been named player of the year in the conference and district, was named the Class two offensive player of the year. The selection comes as no surprise to St. Vincent athletic director Creston Moore, who said Adams has brought state wide recognition to the school.
“In southeast Missouri and even up in St. Louis, when her name is mentioned when it comes to soccer people know her,” Moore said. “She has played high level club ball up there for a number of years and I believe she has won national championships with those clubs. Every year she has been on the field she comes out and performs, she is one of the hardest workers I have ever seen as far as a student athlete goes with grades and how hard she practices, and how she plays and carries herself.”
Adams won the offensive player of the year recognition for her 70 goals and 18 assists. Robinson scored 3 goals on the season with seven assists, earning recognition for her excellent performance as a defender. She was named by her coaches as one of the best defensive players in the conference on the year. She helped lead the lady Indian defense that only conceded 23 goals in 24 games.
“Our defense has been solid for the past few years, and Rylee has been a huge part of that for all four years of her high school career,” Head Coach Cari Barnes said.
Emmendorfer scored 2 goals with 17 assists, the second most on the team for the year. Wibbenmeyer scored 23 goals, the second most on the team for the year, with 15 assists.
Barnes, who was named coach of the year for both her conference and district, earned state level honors as well, being named the Private school coach of the year. Moore said Barnes has been a great asset to St. Vincent, building a closely bonded team that loves playing under her.
“Cari has done such a good job coaching these girls, the team is very close, my daughter was on it this year and she couldn’t talk enough about how much of a family that Cari had built,” Moore said. “I have never heard any complaints from any of our girls after practice or anything. They have fun being there, they had a fun season and they’re already talking about next year. So yes, Cari is pretty special to our program, the way she has built this team.”
“I am blessed with a group of girls who have had great coaches before me, so they make my job pretty easy,” Barnes said in June when asked about being honored as coach of the year at the conference level.
Moore added that the program that Barnes has helped build is a positive reflection of the Perry County soccer community as a whole.
“I hope Cari sticks around because she has built something pretty special, we look forward to many more years of successful soccer in Perryville,” he said. “You can’t have a better soccer community than our town. Numerous times you go anywhere in St. Louis and when people ask where you’re from and you say Perryville, they say, ‘Man we love your soccer complex.’ The community supports soccer so well, and it just develops these kids like Lana and her brothers and a number of kids from the public school that went on to play in college who started here in our rec program.”
