As the final seconds of Thursday’s girls 10th Region soccer final wound down, the contrasts were obvious.
Bishop Brossart’s bench celebrated their second consecutive championship title, a 5-0 win over Scott, by pretending they were the Radio City Rockettes – their dance line even had the requisite high leg kicks. A minute or so after the final buzzer, you saw an assistant coach console Eagles goalkeeper Savannah Black.
Thursday was the Lady ‘Stangs’ third shutout over Scott this season. Coach Andy Smith said this year’s team was a little more tactical and technical than last year.
“Last year we were just kind of coming into that,” Smith said. “A lot of girls were improving in their offseason. Most of them play club, and they’ve just improved with their touches and their spacing and moving without the ball and playing the right ball at the right time.”
Junior Kylie Smith believes the newest title is the most satisfying.
“It was more fun,” she said. “It was more chill. We could have more fun, I guess.”
Rylee Fuller led the Lady ‘Stangs with three goals, the first time she’s had that many since a 3-2 win over Notre Dame on Sept. 30.
“She just moves well without the ball if you watch some of her overlapping runs on the wings that they’re just not expecting,” Smith said. “And the help of her teammates. I mean, when you have a player like Kylie in the middle and a lot of attention on Kylie, it frees up Rylee.”
Fuller added: “I’ve been doing a lot of overlapping runs with Larah (Callahan) and Tessa (Hafer), and I feel like it’s definitely working this season.”
Scott (11-7-3) started with a 4-5-1 alignment with four defenders and five midfielders and a striker, a system the Eagles didn’t normally play. Nichols said as many as eight Eagles patrolled the defensive third of the field.
“Sometimes you run into a buzzsaw, so that’s what happened tonight,” Scott coach Corey Nichols said. “We had a game plan, and (Brossart) is one of those few teams you come across, the game plan, it didn’t work. We changed up our players a little bit where we played them, and we were going to try to play some defense and maybe get something in transition.”
PHOTOS: Slideshow provided by Will Jones, 10thRegion.com
That strategy lasted about six minutes, the time it took Brossart (17-5-3) to open the scoring when Addison Sendelbach converted one of Smith’s two assists from about 25 yards out. Fuller scored in the 24th, 34th and 46th minutes. Josie Golden and Olivia McDermott added assists.
“And then we gave up the goals, and at that point we came out of that because now we need to score,” Nichols said.
Kylie Smith scored in the 40th minute on a shot from the right wing to the lower left corner of the net.
“Right now I like assisting because I like working to get the defenders to me and finding other people,” she said.
Nichols said his team set a standard in Taylor Mill.
“And tonight, this whole year, was every player putting a piece of stone to help build what we’re trying to do here,” he said. “Nobody likes losing, I hate losing just as much as everybody else, but this year has been nothing but amazing for these kids.”
Brossart meets Ryle or Highlands in the opening round of the state tournament Monday or Tuesday.
After the trophy presentation, Brossart had one more moment of merriment – Thursday was sophomore Mackenzie Moeller’s birthday, and the Lady ‘Stangs danced in a circle with Moeller in the middle.
“I love this team,” Andy Smith said. “Truly, these guys are friends here. They’re friends at school, they’re friends at home. They all care about each other.”
