By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
The inaugural varsity season for Cassville girls soccer couldn’t have gone much better.
The Wildcats won nine of their final 11 games in 2019 to finish with a winning record (11-10) and played in the Class 2 District 10 championship game, losing 4-1 to Logan-Rogersville.
But the program’s momentum was halted last spring with a canceled season.
“Obviously it affects everyone but for a new program, it just had the potential to be disastrous for us to work so hard just to bring girls soccer to the area and for something like that to happen just really was a worst-case scenario, honestly,” head coach Jake Forste said.
“It feels good to be back and I think we’ll have a record number of girls,” he said. “We’ve had a record number of offseason participation. I think 2019 was a successful season and it’s just made us hungrier, really.”
Cassville has consistently had 22 to 24 players participating in offseason workouts – double the amount from 2019 – and Forste anticipates as many as 30 will be on the roster.
Senior Maddie Bowyer returns to lead the Wildcats this spring. She was an all-district defender as a sophomore and also earned second team Big 8 Conference honors. Forste said she could make a run for conference player of the year this season.
“She’s just phenomenal,” he said. “She’s transitioned from a defensive player of the year candidate to our target player up top. Her job, and she knows it and colleges around the area know it, is to light up the scoreboard and that’s what we intend and that’s what she’s going to do.”
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She had four goals and an assist two years ago.
Other returning starters are junior Elizabeth Ray, a left back that’s moved to center back; junior Jhandi Shears, who started in the midfield as a freshman; and senior Olivia Holman, a forward who has good chemistry with the others and is a “jack of all trades.”
Shears had two goals and two assists in 2019 and Holman scored once.
Junior Lexie Sanders is a forward/midfielder who came off the bench as a freshman and earned a few spot starts; she recorded one assist. Junior Jasmine Brown was the team’s backup goalkeeper and made a few varsity appearances.
“She’s very good at what she does and she’s hard-nosed,” Forste said of Brown. “She just has a lot of talent.”
Sophomores who should contribute are Audrey Goutney, who has speed and skill on the wing, and Dulce Rivera, a “hard-nosed” center back who will be a good tandem partner with Ray in the backfield.
“I think most years we’re in a position where we’re kind of looking for a few people to grow into a role and maybe don’t have those roles figured out but this year I think we have a full 11 and another four or five off the bench who will all be rotated,” Forste said. “We’re just deep and we’ve got girls who are hungry. It’s a good position to be in and it’s not one I’ve been in a lot as a head coach where you just feel confident. COVID’s going to be crazy again and it’s going to impact teams in different ways. It just feels we’re prepared and ready, come what may, to have a successful year.”
Forste said the team has set a high bar and he wants to make a run for a conference and district championships. That’s a far cry from the Wildcats who started off 2-8 in 2019. It was after a 5-1 loss to Carl Junction in the midst of that slow start that Forste took his team aside and said the results weren’t acceptable or fun.
A day later Cassville held a state-ranked Springfield Catholic scoreless through 72 minutes before falling 1-0. Barely a week later the Wildcats embarked on an incredible defensive streak, holding opponents scoreless for 680 minutes straight.
“I think that really sets a precedent of who we are and what we can be as a program,” Forste said.
“We’re not an upstart, new kid on the block anymore,” he said. “We’re ready to ascend. We’ve got some girls who do it the right way.”
Cassville will travel to McDonald County along with Aurora for a jamboree on Tuesday, March 16. The team opens the season March 19 by hosting its own tournament for the first time, a four-team round robin with Branson, Monett and Aurora.
