Maryville girls soccer eyes first final four appearance in program history

Micaela Dea, St. Joseph News-Press, Mo.
·2 min read

May 29—MARYVILLE, Mo. — Ahead of the Class 2 state quarterfinals, the Maryville Spoofhounds look to make history.

"It'd be pretty awesome to be the first MHS soccer team to make it past quarterfinals," Maryville senior Cassidy Spire said.

Maryville girls soccer has advanced to the quarterfinals before, but a win Saturday versus Pleasant Hill would push the team farther than it has ever been before in the state tournament.

"There's a lot on the line and it's always way more intense. The fans are really into it. So that makes it pretty exciting," Maryville assistant coach Chase Tolson said. "But I think the girls are really fired up and I know that Coach Gonzalez and I are, about the chance to make it further than we ever have and to get to go down to state next weekend."

Under first-year head coach Jesus Gonzales, the Spoofhounds clinched their sixth-straight district championship.

"I think I speak for the whole team when we started out this season with a new coach, I mean, we all hope to go far, but we weren't really expecting, I guess, to be as good as I think that we ended up being. So it's really exciting to have come this far and have worked with each other," Maryville senior Victoria Allen said.

Maryville met Pleasant Hill earlier this season, falling to the Chicks 2-1, and now look to avenge the loss.

"It wasn't our best game that we've played. We had a couple girls that were injured, a couple out for the whole game. One of them only got to play half the game. We just had a couple errors that led to their goals," Tolson said. "So we think it's a really winnable game, but we know that it's going to be tough, because they're a good team."

With a chance to make program history on the line, the Spoofhounds believe this time it'll be different.

"I hope that we will win the game. The first game we played against them, we did insanely well with our passes. We maintained possession of the ball, they just happened to get past the defense a few times and got some lucky shots up, but we have a really good offensive team, and our defense is pretty well put together and I just expect we'll do pretty good," Spire said.

Maryville travels to face Pleasant Hill in the Class 2 Quarterfinal at 6 p.m. Saturday.

Micaela Dea can be reached at micaela.dea@newspressnow.com.

Follow her on Twitter: @NPNowDea