By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Glendale coach Jeff Rogers told his team at halftime that the next goal would set the tone.
The Falcons had to wait about 35 minutes for that next goal, but junior Reilly Heman scored twice in a minute-and-a-half span and the Glendale girls soccer team advanced to the Class 3 semifinals with a 4-0 win at Carl Junction in quarterfinal action on Saturday.
“Just excited for the kids,” Rogers said. “I’ve been doing this 30 plus years and I never take these things for granted because it’s so hard to get, to be successful in postseason. We’ve got a special group so I’m excited for them.”
Glendale, 20-3, won for the 10th time in a row and advances to its first semifinal since 2012, and its fourth in school history. The Falcons will face Ursuline Academy on June 3.
Sophomore Annaliese Black opened the scoring in the 15th minute with an assist by sophomore Avery Givens. The Falcons took a 2-0 lead in the 37th minute when freshman Charlie Wistrom scored with an assist from Heman.
That was all the scoring until Heman – assisted by Black – knocked one in in the 75th minute. Heman struck again in the 77th minute to put the finishing touches on the win.
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“For us it was just doing what we do,” Rogers said. “We knew coming in that we wanted to put them under constant pressure, which I think we did today. Created a lot of good looks. When you’re putting a team under constant pressure they just can’t get anything going forward and so that’s what we were able to do today.”
Carl Junction, 21-6, suffered a season-ending loss to Glendale for the second time in three seasons after falling to the Falcons in the 2019 sectionals. Saturday was just the third time all season the Bulldogs allowed four goals, and it happened for the first time in nearly a month. It was Glendale’s 13th shutout.
“I think we were prepared for what they had,” Carl Junction coach Ed Miller said. “That first half we had a mistake back there, a miscommunication between our goalie and our back back there and gave up a goal. First 10 or 15 minutes I thought we played even, it was kind of back and forth, both jabbing at each other. Once we gave up that goal we lost a little confidence with that and then late in the first half they scored the second one and we just couldn’t get it cleared out of the box. Some mistakes here and we’re down 2-0 at halftime.”
“As long as I’ve been doing this you can always have good teams but it’s so hard to advance and Carl Junction just played hard,” Rogers said. “A lot of credit to them. They made us work for it. I just knew if our kids played the way we’ve been playing all year we would be okay.”
