On Tuesday, March 9th, the Manitou Springs High School (MSHS) Girls’ Soccer Team went head to head with St. Mary’s High School Girls’ Soccer Team. Throughout the years, St. Mary’s has been a huge rival for MSHS in athletics. Both schools always go head to head in important games and championships. For 2019, the MSHS football team took back the trophy that St. Mary’s had for winning the previous years championship game. This trophy has been passed between the two teams for many years.

Throughout the entire game, both teams kept up great defense which resulted in only one goal to be scored by St. Mary’s. The teams battled for the ball for the entire 80 minutes as they kept up determination and enthusiasm. In the last 40 seconds of the second half, Sophia McKeown (10) came through and scored a goal from behind the 18-yard line. This well-deserved goal sent the game go into overtime. The next ten minutes were filled with a great amount of tension as both teams competed for the finishing goal. Minutes passed and everyone watching in the bleachers and sidelines were on the edge of their seats. Then, fighting for the ball, Caileen Sienknecht (12) was badly injured. Since the final minutes of overtime were quickly going by, the referee of the game failed to call a timeout after seeing she was injured. Within that minute, St. Mary’s scored the winning goal. Since Sienknecht is such a valued player on the team, almost everyone in the crowd stayed to see if she was okay. Sienknecht then got up and ran to her team as the crowd cheered.

Though the MSHS Girls’ Soccer Team was defeated, the game had many positives. McKeown ended up being selected for Player of the Game for her smart decisions on the field. The entire team was proud of each other for keeping up the great defense throughout the duration of the game.