JV Girls Soccer Upsets Festus In 2-0 Shutout

After varsity faced a tough loss to Festus, the JV Lady Eagles avenged their teammates with a shutout. They fired two goals in the final nine minutes to blank the Lady Tigers on Wednesday, Apr. 9.

In the pre-game huddle, JV Coach Matt O’Dell told his team that their objective was to “try to pick [varsity] up.” He explained after the victory, “We want to make sure that we can kind of lift their spirits and end the night on a positive vibe. The goal was to dictate from the beginning—play aggressive, play smart… and we were able to do that tonight and get a win.”

At the start, the Lady Eagles and Tigers tussled back and forth at midfield. The scoreboard remained blank at halftime, but Sullivan still had their eyes on the back of the net. Coach O’Dell described his team’s mindset as “I think with the shorter time that we were allotted, [they were] mentally trying to make the adjustment of like, ‘Alright, hey, we’re running out of time here, ladies. We’re gonna have to pick up the pace here.’ And they locked it in from there, and they were able to really push, put in a ton of shots.”

Kloe Greife drew first blood for the Lady Eagles eight minutes into the second half. Right afterward, the freshman would chip in another goal to seal Sullivan’s 2-0 victory. 

O’Dell praised Greife for her two scores and Jordyn Tilford for the game-winning assist.

The coach credited goalie Ayla Schatzl with the shutout and Ava Kirk for being “an absolute force… in the middle.”

O’Dell also thanked his center midfielders for doing “a great job” and the offense for their dominant presence. He shouted out all his players for their “full-team effort” in holding the Lady Tigers to zero goals.

After crushing Festus, the JV Lady Eagles continued their momentum into Lebanon. They beat their opponents 2-1, 5-0 and 5-0 in a shootout tournament held on Apr. 12. 

With six consecutive wins, Coach O’Dell does not want his players to hit the brakes on their success. He stated, “[When] we get into the grind of the season, you know, it can be easy to kind of just rest on the laurels [and say], ‘Hey, we got a couple wins here,’ and then kind of take a step back. [But] we got to keep the gas pedal down. So that’s going to be the tone moving forward, and we’ll see how they respond next week and the games to follow.”