The Liberty Christian boys soccer team won a pair of games to place second at the Missouri Christian Schools Athletic Association Division II state tournament despite being seeded sixth in the …
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The Liberty Christian boys soccer team won a pair of games to place second at the Missouri Christian Schools Athletic Association Division II state tournament despite being seeded sixth in the tournament.
“I knew it was gonna be a tough course to go,” Liberty Christian Academy soccer coach Ken Dildine said. “But I knew these boys had it in them the whole entire time from the beginning… We’ve got a very good team and I was looking to make a good, strong run in the state and that’s what we built for.”
Liberty Christian beat Clinton Christian 3-1 in the opening round. After falling behind 1-0 in the first half, the Eagles scored three goals in the second half to win their tournament opener. Willie Mueller scored a pair of goals off of corner kicks in the second half to give Liberty Christian a 2-1 lead. Tommy Meyer scored later in the half to put the game out of reach.
They beat Christian Learning Center 3-0 in the semifinals to advance to the championship match.
Dildine said the Eagles’ quality ball movement was key in both games.
The Eagles struggled in their 8-0 loss to Ozarks Christian in the championship match. Dildine said weather was a factor in the championship match with the cold and rainy conditions. He said the Eagles “were not prepared for that cold weather to snap like that.”
“They’ve beaten us the last three games we faced them,” Dildine said. “They’ve beaten us and beaten us pretty good and they wound up doing the same thing. They are a good, powerful team and we just did not have an answer for anything that they had coming our way.”
Mueller and Brody Kuehn were first team all-state selections. Meyer earned second team all-state recognition.
Dildine stressed the strides the Eagles made over the course of the season. They put in hard work to keep pushing and striving to improve.
“It was a rough go sometimes,” Dildine said. “We had some struggles and even on the practice side of it where things weren’t going right. But with the discipline and and everything that they’ve had, they really persevered.”
Dildine said there was more communication and more team leadership this season.
