IWA Ends Ladue's Soccer Season

Ladue started the soccer season with a win and ended with a loss, but there were lots of “W”s in between.

Since records were kept accurately starting in the early 1990s, Ladue broke almost every record in the books. They tied most wins in a season with 17 and set many others.

But it was Incarnate Word Academy’s day on their home field Tuesday in the semifinals of the Class 2, District soccer championships. IWA moves on to host MICDS for the title match Thursday, 4 p.m. at home.

Bigger, stronger, faster, that was IWA over an inspired but outmanned Ladue squad. Sometimes, the Rams got pushed around like gag dolls.

Elly Freesmeier was poetry in motion. She battled Ladue tooth and nail. Kelsey Murphy was a scoring machine, beating Ladue keeper Fran Shannon twice.

Altogether, IWA fashioned a 4-1 semifinal win over the upstart but outmanned Rams.

Murphy says bring on those Rams. “I think MICDS is a really great team. We’re going to have to work very hard, but I think we can do it,” said the Red Knight’s junior forward. “Ladue played great and they gave us a great game,” said a beaming Murphy.

For a while Ladue thought they could do it. After Murphy got the opening goal, freshman Hayden Hunt pushed the ball past a stumbling Andrea Brown to tie the game at one-all.

Turns out, Brown fell badly, untouched and was removed from the game with a serious knee injury. IWA is done to one keeper, Makayla Hussong who performed admirably in Brown’s absence.

From there, the Red Knights took over with unanswered goals from Murphy, Megan Whitehead and Freesmeier.

Erin Hesselbach, Red Knight’s coach revealed her game plan. “Our plan was to come out and play strong right from the start. Hopefully, knock one in the first 10 (minutes) and we did that. We dug deep, we battled hard, It wasn’t our best game, but we won.”

I didn’t know what to expect from Ladue. I was more focused on our team. If we do the little things, we’d be alright.”

Ladue’s coach Dave Aronberg says they can’t escape St. Louis’ top teams. “We just left last year’s district with Nerinx and St. Joe. I think St. Joe beat us 10-0. Now we get Incarnate Word and MICDS.

I told our girls they believed they could stay with them, and for 30-40 minutes we did.”

Continuing, “Down 4-1, we knew we weren’t going to win the game, but we still showed pride and we didn’t want to give up that fifth goal.”

Aronberg is loaded with so many under class starters, surely Ladue will be a strong contender the next time around.

For Incarnate Word, they already are.