The Perryville girls soccer team has been known to put up goals in bunches, but Saturday, St. Vincent held any chances to a minimum. The Indians shut down the Perryville offense as St. Vincent came away with the 2-1 victory on Saturday at the Bank of Missouri Soccer Complex on senior day for both teams.
The victory is the first for the Indians in the series against their crosstown rival since 2017, and ended a stretch of five games in six days and was their second game in about 17 hours for the Indians. St. Vincent defeated Hillsboro 5-0 on Friday night.
“The girls played outstanding from start to finish.“ Strattman said. “I felt like we set the tone from the beginning and let them know we weren’t backing down and we challenged everything they did.”
St. Vincent (7-8) outshot Perryville 7-5 in the contest and much of the first half was played in the Indian zone as Perryville (11-4-2) was limited to two shots in the first 40 minutes.
That was a theme for the full 80 minutes as Indians set out to contain Perryville senior Leah Buerck, who had 32 goals on the season, entering the game.
“I told the girls that I wanted someone else to beat us,” Strattman said. “Our back line of Mary Schwartz and Emme Kirn and our whole defense did a great job of keeping everything in front of them.”
St. Vincent controlled much of the start of the game, as Reese Barber took a shot that went over the net about seven minutes into the game and missed a close range shot off a nice corner kick to the front of the net.
Strattman said he felt a goal was coming from that point on and he would have been right.
Genevieve Lipe connected on a shot as the ball ping-ponged around inside the box in the 27th minute to give the Indians a 1-0 lead.
“We had a bunch of chances early,” Strattman said. “It was nice to get that goal early, so that we weren’t pressing to get it late in the game. We kept playing solid and gave the girls some confidence and the belief that they could win.”
St. Vincent nearly added a second goal late in the first half as the Perryville defense was able to clear a corner kick that saw several shots blocked by Pirate defenders and Perryville goalkeeper Adrienne Weibrecht bobble a shot and eventually knocked it out of bounds with three minutes left before half.
That eventual goal came to start the second half when Cailyn Prost dropped out a pass to Faith Kell, who deposited a shot over the outstretched hand of Weibrecht from about 25 yards out.
“That was a big insurance goal for us because when you have a one goal lead anything can happen,” Strattman said. “That second goal gave us the cushion that we would need.”
Buerck scored with five minutes left to narrow the Pirate deficit to 2-1.
That goal made Strattman a little nervous, partly because he knew that the Pirates eliminated a two goal difference with 10 minutes to go against Cape Central on April 8 and a three goal deficit against North County on April 26.
There was no such comeback this time as St. Vincent controlled the last five minutes and kept the ball on their offensive half for the last five minutes.
“We constantly work on those late game situations in practice,” Strattman said. “To see the girls put that to work in a game is fantastic. We take our time on offense and clear everything on defense that is close to the goal. We handled everything so well.”
