For the first time ever, a Bolivar squad medaled in soccer. The ladies took the first place medal in U17 with a 4-1 win over West Plains/Mt. View, a 5-1 win over Troy, and a 5-0 win over Hannibal. Jonna Welch, Izzy Mersch, Sarah Magana, Jacqoline Bradshaw and probably a few others scored for the Liberators. Majesti Rash earned the shutout in goal during the final game and made some great saves all weekend. Congrats ladies on a dominating weekend.
The boys competed in the U18 division and in our six or seven years of attending SMSG, we have never seen a more difficult and competive bracket. The fellas fell in game one 0-3 to a club team from St. Louis, the O’Fallon vipers. The game was much closer than the score indicates, but the difference was O’Fallon converted on thier opportunities and the Liberators did not. The second game found the Liberators matched up against another St. Louis metro school in Union. The Liberators played top notch soccer and came away with a huge 1-0 victory! After the bracket was seeded, the Liberators ended up #4 and had to play the #5 team….Union….again. I dont think either team was really thrilled about playing each other again. Union was able to score in the first ten minutes when the Liberators had a defensive breakdown. Union scored a few minutes later on a blown offside call. I normally dont write much about officiating, but this kid was CLEARLY five yards off. the official was out of position at midfield talking to some of the Liberator crowd about how he used to live in Bolivar back in the 70’s. Ugh….that proved to be the game winning goal. Mitchell Waters came back later in the game and fired a low driving rocket shot past a diving keeper. Bolivar press hard, but just could not get the tying goal past the mass of bodies in the box. Congrats boys on a great weekend of competive soccer. You proved you can compete with the big boys once again!