St. Teresa’s Academy reaches championship game in Missouri Class 4 girls state soccer

St. Teresa’s Academy entered its semifinal game against Cor Jesu Academy in the Missouri Class 4 girls state soccer tournament having allowed just one goal in its last eight games.

So one goal by the Stars on Friday would put them in great position for a semifinals victory at Swope Soccer Village. Senior Alyssa Seitzer gave them that on a penalty kick with 20 minutes remaining in the first half.

St. Teresa’s kept attacking and tacked on two more goals for a 3-0 victory. The victory puts St. Teresa’s, 19-4, in the Class 4 championship game. The Stars will take on St. Joseph’s Academy, 21-2-1, at 4 p.m. Saturday.

“We have a solid backline with Abby Small,” said Seitzer, who finished with two goals. “She comes out of nowhere and stops anybody who comes at her. With Reagan (Shatto), she gets up and down the field and doesn’t wear out. Addison (Coppinger) and Reece (Knudson) stay steady. We work together well and shut teams down.”

The road to the title game started when Cor Jesu committed a foul in the box on a breakaway scoring attempt by the Stars. Seitzer took the penalty kick and zipped the ball into the right corner of the goal.

The Stars continued to dominate the action in the first half, and their relentless effort finally paid off with a combination of three nice passes that led to a sliding-kick goal by freshman Lily Farkas with 4 minutes, 49 seconds left in the first half.

“We were comfortable, but we knew it was going to take more,” Seitzer said. “We had to keep working throughout the whole game to get the job done and make the next round.”

Three minutes into the second half, St Teresa’s put the game away when Seitzer scored her second goal of the game off an assist from Shatto.

The Star have now shut out eight of their last opponents.

The Stars showed their shutout ability with a little over 4 minutes left. Cor Jesu had three opportunities on one sequence of plays at point-blank range but failed to score.

This story was originally published June 3, 2016 at 8:19 PM with the headline "St. Teresa’s Academy reaches championship game in Missouri Class 4 girls state soccer."