The girl’s soccer team got fourth in state after losing to Rosemount in the state semi-finals at the US Bank Stadium during the 2022 fall soccer season.

Varsity girls won state last year in the 2021 season and this year they came up short with the record of 17-4, not quite making it to the championship. In the previous season, they were able to make it to the finals and win against a team that was #1 in the nation.

Head coach Mike Huber played soccer in college and has been with this team for 11 years. He is also a state title holder, and Huber said the team has scored more goals this year than any other year and just got unlucky.

“We just happened to give up kind of a silly goal, we were only shut out in one game which happened to be in the state semifinal,” Huber said.

This just shows that in soccer, one will never know what the end result will be, no matter what the competition.

This team has been to state the past two years using the same type of play style. They have been playing in a 4-3-3 with four defenses, 3 mid fields, and 3 forwards.

Huber explains, “we’ll probably keep doing the same thing next year. Out of the 11 starters that we have on the field 8 of them are coming back next year.” He added, “we’re going to have the same group of core players on the field so I think we will kind of build off of what we have already done.”

Huber is hoping they can use the same tactics and keep making it to state.

In one of their last games of the season against Rosemount, both senior captain Nell Smith and senior captain Lauren Cuta said it was all about getting the ball in the back of the net, which they were not able to do.

Huber agreed and added, “We were playing kind of too soft defensively, you know, just kind of backing up into our own goalkeepers.”

This was something they struggled with throughout the season and was one of their weak points. This caused them to struggle in games where it meant the most.

This season, the coaches picked the best 22 players in the school, and half of them happened to be freshmen. Some thought this would cause a problem but Smith said they affected the team and season in a wonderful way.

Smith added, “they brought a lot of intensity and energy since they are so young.”

All the positivity helped the team be able to connect and play together which is key to becoming a good team.

Cuta said that a strong point the team had was that everyone was close which helped with their team’s success.

“Everyone was working as a team like no one was like a ball hog or anything like everybody was connecting,” Cuta added.

To become more connected as a team they did non-soccer-related activities off the field, such as Haunted Hayrides and hanging out as a team. They needed to be able to get to know everybody especially when they have 11 new freshmen on the team.

Smith explains, “since we lost both our goalkeepers last year, the two freshman goalkeepers really stepped up.”

These two freshmen, Reese Elzen and Parker Reardon have had a big role on the team and have also led the team to state.

After another hard-fought, and well-deserved season, saying goodbye to the seniors might be the hardest part. However, with the excitement of the freshman and the experience of the juniors and seniors, there are high hopes that they bring it all the way in the years to come.

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