Red Knights Kick MICDS Soccer to the Curb

In the blink of an eye, the MICDS soccer season has come to a conclusion.  Incarnate Word broke away from a scoreless first half to edge the Rams on their home field 2-nil and won the district title Thursday. There will be no more practices; no more game plans to draw up this year for MICDS.

Still, the Rams shall keep their heads held erect. Thirty other teams have had the same season-ending results against the powerful North County Red Knights. This is IWA's 31st consecutive district title. Quite an achievement.

“We put the pressure there. I think its tough for anyone to come onto our field and play on our turf,” said IWA’s coach Erin Hesselbach.

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Next for the Red Knights, they will rematch against Visitation Academy, also at home this coming Tuesday. The winner advances to the semifinals in Kansas City over Memorial Day weekend.

“That Viz game was a 1-1 game (earlier this season) and we beat them on penalty kicks,” said the Knights coach.

The Rams had their chances. One shot bounced off the crossbar. They were facing the Knights reserve goal keeper freshman Makayla Hussong. The regular keeper Andrea Brown severely damaged her ACL Tuesday against Ladue and hobbled around on crutches during the championship match.

Incarnate got its first goal from Megan Whitehead on a header off a corner kick from Katie Kienstra. The second goal at the 67:14 mark came from Melanie Donaldson’s corner kick which bent perfectly past keeper Liz Lewis for the second and final goal. That one took the air out of the Rams attack.

“It was was a very good season, but its hard to think about that at this point,” said head coach Michael Black. MICDS brought down the curtain on an 17-3-1 season.

“I think the girls gave everything they could today.

We had two or three pretty good chances in the first half, and if we could have put one or two of them in, obviously the game would have looked different. The keeper came up with the big save on one, and we missed on the other one," said Black.

Black returns a number of players next year, and none will be more welcome than forward Caroline Militello who has already agreed to play for Columbia University, New York.

Millitello has the sense and awareness to be a scoring threat on every inbound, free and corner kick situation.

“She definitely attacks the ball which a lot of girls don’t do. She’s been outstanding all year long. We said at the beginning of the day we felt our best chances would come off corners," said Black.

They didn’t and IWA carted off the district trophy.

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