Defense name of the game for Lady Jays

In today's soccer semifinal

Jefferson City midfielder Tayler LePage battles with Meggy Ross of Rolla for possession of the ball during a game this season at the 179 Soccer Park.
Jefferson City midfielder Tayler LePage battles with Meggy Ross of Rolla for possession of the ball during a game this season at the 179 Soccer Park.

The Jefferson City Lady Jays enter today's Class 3 soccer semifinal with one number in mind - 20.

Because getting to 20 would mean something very good has happened.

Jefferson City (22-4-1, ranked No. 5) has 19 shutouts this season heading into the 4 p.m. contest against the St. Teresa's Academy Stars (21-0, ranked No. 1) at Blue Spring South High School. That total leads the state and has played no small part in the Lady Jays advancing to the Final Four for the first time in program history.

"I've always believed that if you're ever going to win anything meaningful, you have to be able to defend and hang on to the ball," Lady Jays coach Eddie Horn said Thursday. "The girls have embraced that and we've rode that horse to the semifinals."

This is where 20 comes in.

"Now that we're in the semifinals, we're going to have to play a little differently," Horn said. "We're going to have to minimize the moment, narrow the focus and have the main goal to get to 20 shutouts. We can't get caught up in how talented they are, how many Division I players they have, the fact they're undefeated. That's just extra stuff, we want to get to 20 shutouts."

The "extra stuff" is some special stuff.

Not only is St. Teresa's the top-ranked team in Missouri, the Stars moved to No. 1 in several national rankings midway through the season.

The Stars' top player is Dorian Bailey, a junior forward who has spent time with the United States' under-18 national team. She has been named the Gatorade Missouri Girls Soccer Player of the Year and has verbally committed to North Carolina.

"Bailey can cause us all kinds of problems if we aren't aware of where she is at all times," Horn said.

St. Teresa's has five senior Division I signees, including Savannah Trujillo, who is going to the University of Missouri.

"She creates a lot of their opportunities by getting to the end line and sending balls across," Horn said.

The Stars, who play a 4-3-3 formation, are averaging a little more than five goals a contest while allowing just one.

"They're all about attacking and scoring goals," Horn said. "People say they may have a weakness on defense, but nobody ever gets there, because they are so aggressive on the offensive end."

Jefferson City returns 10 starters from last year's team that advanced to the quarterfinals. So it's not really a surprise the Lady Jays have advanced this far - even with the slight change in philosophy.

"The girls knew they were pretty good last year, and they might have wondered why things were changing," Horn said. "But once we started to get into the season and teams weren't getting shots against us, when we were dominating play, I think the confidence and the momentum started to build."

The Lady Jays and the Stars played in the same division at the Tournament of Champions in mid-April in Burlington, Iowa. They didn't meet, but had two common opponents. Jefferson City lost 2-1 to St. Charles North (Ill.) and Whitefish Bay (Wis.) 3-1, while St. Teresa's won 2-1 and 2-0, respectively.

"We just went up to play, to find out truly where we were at," Horn said. "And in fairness to the team, I didn't manage the weekend very well. I kept the starters in way too long in the first two games, and we didn't have anything in the tank when we played Whitefish Bay, and it got away from us.

"You can look at the scores and say St. Teresa's is 3-5 goals better, but I think it will be a different story."

And that will come down to the play of Jefferson City's defense.

"Who better to have a chance to upset St. Teresa's than us?" Horn said. "We're comfortable with defending, we're good at it. We want to ride that to the final and the girls believe we can do that.

"We're not going to be happy to be there, we want to go and make a game of it."

Jefferson City has scored a total of 81 goals in its 27 games, while allowing 15. Five of the ones allowed came in the three games at the Tournament of Champions.

"We're not a high-powered attacking team," Horn said. "We rarely blow anybody out and while our style may be boring sometimes, it works, and I'd rather win than lose."

This is the first soccer Final Four appearance for the Lady Jays. It's the second for Horn, who led the Jefferson City boys to the Final Four in 1998.

"That's a long time," Horn said. "It's a special season to get there, and we want to enjoy the moment, because for a lot of our players, it's probably going to be the top soccer moment they have."

Today's other Class 3 semifinal will pit unranked Francis Howell North (17-6-1) against second-ranked St. Joseph's Academy (21-1).

The title game is set for 4 p.m. Saturday at Blue Springs South High School. The third-place game will start at noon at Blue Springs High School.