SPRING LAKE PARK — The St. Cloud Tech girls soccer team’s season ended Thursday with a game played mostly in a downpour at Spring Lake Park High School.
Third-seeded Mankato East defeated the Tigers 3-1 behind two goals from Taylor Schilling in the Class AA state quarterfinals. The Cougars (16-2-2) advance to the state semifinals and will play the winner of Mahtomedi vs. St. Francis on Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. at U.S. Bank Stadium.
“They were really strong and physical on the ball,” Tech coach Katie Boardman said. “We struggled to win 50-50 balls. I thought they did a good job of always being first.”
“We were really stagnant. We didn’t move much. Maybe it was the cold and the rain,” said Boardman, whose team was making its first state tournament appearance since 2001. “It might be because of the atmosphere and the pressure,” he said, “because we’ve never encountered a moment like that before, so they had very good speed up top and found us and shattered our defense.” I was able to. ”
Schilling, a junior, scored his 26th goal of the season with 23:36 left in the first half. With 28 minutes and 51 seconds left in the second half, they scored their 27th point of the season, moving them into a tie for 11th in the state and making it 2-0.
The Tigers (15-4-1) narrowed the gap to 2-1 with senior Molly Berkstrand’s header with 18:17 left in the second half. The goal extended Berkstrand’s state record to 62 goals, a freshman at Bemidji State University and the Class AA Miss Soccer winner.
But 14 seconds after Berkstrand scored, sophomore forward Jillian Borgmeier scored her 18th point of the season to make it 3-1, and the Tigers could no longer get any closer.
“It’s not ideal and it’s very hopeless,” Boardman said. “You think you start to shift momentum a little bit and then they go back and take advantage of it.”
The Tigers will lose five seniors to graduation, including Berkstrand, Maggie O’Hara and defenseman Sadie Zelman O’Hara, who is tied for first in the state with 27 assists.
“They give us shine and energy and we have two seniors (Iris Rodriguez and Maddie Hagen) who are going to be big roles for us coming off the bench,” Boardman said. “They give us a spark, we feed off of them. They’ve been so good to us, some of them have been around for five years, and they’ve made this program work. This is an important factor in turning things around.”
Although the Tigers’ season has come to an end, they are proud to have achieved their goal of making it to the state tournament.
“We played hard. I’m proud of our seniors and everything they accomplished this season,” Boardman said. “I am very grateful to represent technology and the community, and I did my best.
“Even though we lost tonight and the careers of some of our girls are over, we’re proud that we won something here.”
While key players are graduating, there are also several returning players. Freshman forward Journey Okwuor had 17 goals and junior goalie Ali Day had 17 goals.
“We have a group of about seven girls on our team that play JV and varsity, so they’ve been able to get a ton of playing time,” Boardman said. “We have a really strong midfield coming back: (senior) Peyton Anderson, Lauren Gadzczyk, (sophomore) Jizzy Frantesl, (sophomore) Presley Anhorn, (junior) Eleanor Piper, (sophomore) ) Eva Collier: They’re all going to be back next year.”
“We have a lot of key returners. We need to redefine ourselves and who we want to be. Who will step up? We lost a big part of our team offensively, but others This is an opportunity for someone to step up and say, “Hey, I’m ready to step into this role.”
