Carroll grad’s 12th-round PK sends Johnson County women’s soccer to NJCAA title game
Wichita native Brecken Hoy has practiced converting penalty kicks thousands of times in her career playing soccer.
She’s created all kinds of different scenarios in her head before, but she never could have dreamed of a situation like the one she found herself in on Thursday.
Hoy had requested to take a penalty kick in the 12th round of a shootout with a chance to send the Johnson County women’s soccer team to the championship match of the NJCAA Division II national tournament.
“I said a Hail Mary and I was honestly good to go,” said Hoy, a Bishop Carroll graduate. “Once I said it, I was calm.”
After 120 minutes on the field and 11 rounds of penalties couldn’t separate Johnson County and Heartland (Ill.) Community College, Hoy was the difference on Thursday when she smoothly tucked her second penalty kick away into the goal to keep an undefeated season alive for the Cavaliers and send them to the final for the second straight year.
Johnson County (19-0-4) will face Northwest Mississippi (21-0) for the title at noon Saturday in Huntsville, Alabama, in a battle between the two unbeaten, top-ranked teams in the country.
“Brecken has courage, bravery, poise, all of the above, but she’s also got that ‘It’ factor,” JCCC coach Jim Schwab said. “Some of the girls that are goal-scorers didn’t want to take the PK’s and when it came to the 12th round, she was the one who stepped up and buried it for us.”
Back home in Wichita, Bishop Carroll girls soccer coach Greg Rauch couldn’t help but smile when he heard the news that Hoy had finished a penalty kick to send her team to a national title.
“She was our designated PK taker just for that reason,” Rauch said. “She’s level-headed and honestly, she spends so much time on her craft that you trust her ability to do it. I think back now on all of those times I can remember her sticking around after practice, probably playing moments like that in her head. It was just muscle memory for her.”
Johnson County struck first in the game with a 49th minute goal scored by Topeka Hayden product Jill Lenherr, then Heartland equalized with just four minutes until stoppage time to force a pair of overtime periods that were eventful but goalless.
While her final penalty will be the one remembered for a long time, Hoy’s first conversion from the spot was almost as important. Johnson County had missed back-to-back attempts and fell behind Heartland 3-1 when Hoy faced a do-or-die attempt and rolled one into the back of the net.
That extended the shootout and sure enough, JCCC goalkeeper Maddox Fergus saved Heartland’s attempt in the fifth round and Lotta Meindl scored to force an extra round of penalty kicks. Both teams converted four straight, then both missed in the 10th round and made in the 11th round to set up Hoy’s heroics after Heartland had missed on its attempt in the 12th round.
“I’ve been doing this for a long, long time and I’ve never been involved in something like that,” Schwab said. “It was kind of like a reality TV show. It was good sometimes and then you were like, ‘Oh no.’”
On her first attempt, Hoy had powered it through on the left side. When she was taking her run-up for her second attempt, Hoy noticed in her peripheral vision that the goalkeeper had already stepped twice toward the left side and calmly rolled a ball toward the right side for the win.
Johnson County is looking for its first national championship in program history, as the Cavaliers have finished runner-up twice — once in 2009 and again last year.
“I can’t even explain how it felt,” Hoy said. “It was just an amazing experience and I couldn’t have done it without my team. It was so nerve-wracking, but I had all of the confidence in the world in all of my teammates. It’s just like a big relief, but we’re not done yet. We’ve got one more to go.”
Johnson County has relied upon a mostly Kansas-backed roster this season, including several former Wichita-area standouts like Sydney Puetz (Garden Plain), Carson Sloan (Kapaun Mt. Carmel) and Riggs Kuhn (McPherson).
Other Kansas natives include Maddox Fergus from Shawnee Mission West, Eleanor Marshall, Lily Marshall and Brenley Cunningham from Gardner Edgerton, Emily Crosby from Olathe West, Carmen Duarte and Macy Malik from Shawnee Mission Northwest, Jenna Knight from Bonner Springs, Maya Wallace from Shawnee Mission North and Ashley Chaput from Blue Valley Southwest.
In her freshman season, Hoy has made a huge impact in the midfield for the Cavaliers. She has 10 goals and nine assists to her record this season, which Schwab said he already begun attracting attention from four-year programs who have watched Hoy stand out in the national tournament in Alabama.
“She is making things happen in the midfield for us,” Schwab said. “She can go forward and she can defend. She’s honestly a much more complete player than when we saw her in high school.
“She was always good, but there’s always a question about how kids will translate to the next level. She has really responded to it and become a more physical player. Everybody has been chasing her down here and it’s been fun to watch. She has a bright future ahead of her.”
This story was originally published November 21, 2024 at 6:36 PM with the headline "Carroll grad’s 12th-round PK sends Johnson County women’s soccer to NJCAA title game."
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