Scholl, Blue Springs girls soccer team outlasts South in epic game

Blue Springs' Gabi Severns hugs teammate Alyssa Scholl after the Wildcats won a shootout to defeat Blue Springs
South 2-1 Thursday night. 

This is what a rivalry is all about.

Two teams giving every ounce of energy they have, putting their bodies on the line every play and leaving fans on the edge of their seats.

Sure, it all sounds pretty cliché, but that’s what happened Thursday night when the Blue Springs and Blue Springs South girls soccer teams staged an epic battle in the two teams’ regular season finale – a game that included a cancer fundraiser for the Jennifer Ireland Foundation in honor of the former Blue Springs student and soccer player – and the Wildcats held of their cross-town rivals in penalty kicks for a 2-1 win.

“It’s your cross-town rival, so you want to go in and win,” Wildcat goalkeeper Alyssa Scholl said. “We wanted this victory. We wanted bragging rights.”

Added South head coach Todd Findley, who lost its sixth conference game by one goal, “Both teams gave remarkable effort. It was a great crowd and a fun atmosphere. Both teams gave 100 great minutes of effort. That’s what a rivalry is.”

With all the extra things surround the game, it seemed destined for more than just 80 minutes of play.

The two teams went into the half knotted at 1-all, as South got on the board first with a goal by Emily Griffin and an assist to Brooke Howe in the 17th minute. With 10 minutes to go until halftime the Wildcats knotted the score when Gabi Severns scored off a nice cross from Lindsey Davis.

From that point on, it was a battle. South controlled a little more of the play and had a handful of good looks, including three that went off the crossbar.

“I love my crossbar,” Scholl said with a smile. “It was my friend for the night.”

Blue Springs South's Natalie Mandina, left, tries
to keep possession with Blue Springs' Brittany
AuBuchon draped on her during Thursday's
game.

And by the time the game got to a shootout, even those five kicks weren’t enough, thanks in large part to the play of Scholl.

“I used to hate them as a kid. I never won,” Scholl said of shootouts. “I always worked as hard as I could on them. I told the girls to get it to a shootout and I had confidence in them.”

With both teams having made three of the first four kicks, Scholl, in a move not seen often, came out from goal and had the fifth and final kick, which she sailed high.

Scholl then had to turn right around, go back into goal and try and save the game by stopping the shot of South’s Alexis Shuker.

And she did just that.

“You guess,” Scholl said with a laugh of her shootout strategy in goal. “You look for little signs as to which way they might go, any kind of ticks they show.

“The odds are against me. I’m not supposed to get those saves.”

Wildcats head coach Doug McLagan said that save showed a lot about Scholl.

“She misses and now you’re asking her to come back and make a save when she’s mentally distorted,” he said. “One of two things can happen: she gives up the goal and feels like she lost the game or she makes the save and avenges her miss. She came back and made the save and that shows a lot about her character.”

That set the table for Katelyn Wakefield to make the eventual game-winning kick. It became official when South’s Sierra Bray sailed her game-tying attempt high.

“I don’t know if she wanted to (kick),” McLagan said of Wakefield. “She was originally the No. 5 before Alyssa stepped in. We came back to her and she took care of business.”

The loss was a devastating one for South – now 6-15 – a team that has failed to win close games all year. Add in those three shots off the crossbar and it was even tougher to swallow.

“It was one of those games,” Findley said. “We have to fight and scrap for every chance. We did that tonight and we still didn’t get those goals. … When you hit the framing three times chances are one has to go in. I’m really proud of the girls and the energy and passion they showed.”

The win for Blue Springs (7-10-1) came on a night when it was its third game of the week, they were without standout Bailey Hensley and there was the emotion of the fundraising event, which has been dubbed the Cancer Battler Cup.

“She was an awesome kid. You mention her and I can see her face,” McLagan said of Ireland. “It was an exciting game. There was a big crowd and it was a great event.”

It won’t be long before the two teams see each other again, as they square off in the first round of the Class 3, District 14 tournament at Raytown High School Monday at 4:30 p.m.

“Monday is the one that counts,” McLagan said.

But there’s no doubt Thursday is the one no one will forget.