Gallery • 11 Photos

Caroline Trupp

Despite copious amounts of pressure a Blue Valley Northwest (BVNW) squad felt leading up to this afternoon’s 6A girls soccer State championship game, the Huskies nerves never showed throughout the game as they shut out Maize High School, 6-0, to take the title for the second consecutive season.

After winning the 6A State soccer championship last season, the girls program  only graduated three seniors and returned the majority of their squad to the field this past spring. According to senior Erin Dimon at the beginning of the season, the team had their eyes set on gaining another ring early on and set high expectations for the season. The team played with the slogan “No Pressure, No Diamonds” for the year, and their high standards and performance payed off today as they blew out an opposing Eagles team.

At the conclusion of the game, head coach Rick Pribyl said he felt he was walking on water he was so elated.

“I’m standing on the shoulders of the giants,” Pribl said. “The girls are the giants.”

The Huskies offense was in control from the beginning of the game and senior Kara Priest netted their first goal four minutes into the game to give the Huskies a 1-0 lead. With ten minutes to go in the first half, junior Cierra Bryant gave BVNW some breathing room, adding on a goal of her own before the halftime buzzer.

While playing in state competition, Pribyl said he noticed that the first 10-15 minutes of a game an opposing team will come out running strictly on adrenaline. To counter this quick attack, Pribyl said he instructed his team to be patient and slowly wear down their opponents.

This strategy paid off, and the Huskies quickly took control of the second half as well with two back-to-back goals by Priest in the first 30 minutes, and the Huskies took a comfortable lead of 4-0. Juniors Lauren Reeder and Katie Sullivan added goals of their own before the final buzzer sounded loudly, queuing the Husky team to form an infamous dog pile at the middle of the field to celebrate their victory.

According to Pribyl, the deciding factor in the shut out was how the Huskies played together the entire time.

“It was the 22 girls who played so smoothly and danced with the ball,” Pribyl said. “We did things other teams didn’t do that were fundamentally right. This team plays together better than any other team I think I’ve seen.”

Senior Kala Brundige (Brigham Young University at Hawaii) said the key was having fun playing together. If a team has fun, then said team will do well and finish strong, Brundige said–which is what the Huskies did.

“It feels unreal to have won two state soccer championships in a row,” Brundige said in the chaotic aftermath. “Our team has more chemistry than we did at the beginning of the season, but we have always played well together.”

Due to the pressure on a team’s back after winning one state title, Pribyl said winning a second state championship is always harder than the first. The games gets harder each year, and Pribyl said other high schools focus their headlights on BVNW in following seasons due to the Huskies’ prior success. 

“These crazy kids at BVNW keep setting the bar higher and higher,” Pribyl said. “I don’t know what more we can do but we are going to savor this while we can. We savored the last championship for a year and we will defiantly savor this one for a year.”