Mehlville Girls Soccer Can't Slow Kirkwood Sharpshooter

Unfortunately for Mehlville, Kirkwood sophomore forward Maggie Schneider sure knows how to throw a sweet 16 party.

Schneider celebrated her 16th birthday with a four-goal outburst on Saturday to lead the Pioneers to a 4-0 win over Mehlville in the third-place game of the Webster-Kirkwood Classic at Kirkwood High School. The Panthers fell to 6-7 this season.

"We were flat from the beginning and they took advantage of the opportunities that we gave them," said Mehlville coach Tom Harper. "We never really challenged them in front of their own goal."

Mehlville junior captain Haylee Thibodeaux suffered what appeared to be a serious ankle injury nine minutes into the match. The contest was stopped for five minutes as Thibodeaux was carefully carried to the sidelines. Harper felt the injury might have slowed his team somewhat.

"We just didn't get much going after that," he said.

Kirkwood, which improved to 8-3, earned a measure of revenge against Mehlville, who beat the Pioneers 2-1 on penalty kicks in the first week of the season.

Schneider proved to be a one-girl wrecking crew, scoring two of her goals in a span of 1:43 in the second half to put the match away.

"She's our go-to player," Kirkwood coach Phil Cotta said of Schneider, who leads the team with 15 goals.

Schneider scored eight goals as a freshman and has been virtually unstoppable this season.

"We all worked together really well today," Schneider said. "We just wanted to get some revenge because we lost to them on PKs. We did. This time we kicked their butts."

Sophomore Alex Jones assisted on two of the goals and Lauren Bordeaux added a helper as well. Freshman goalie Marisa Meiners posted her fifth clean sheet of the season.

The Pioneers have won six of their past seven matches. The only setback was a penalty-kick loss to eventual champion Lindbergh earlier in the eight-team tournament.

Schneider decided to hold off on her birthday party until after the match. She wore an ear-to-ear grin as teammates, family and friends congratulated her on her special effort.

Schneider did plenty of celebrating on the field as well. She scored in the 16th minute, heading in a perfect pass from Jones. Just more than 10 minutes later, she converted on a nifty feed from Bordeaux to pump the lead to 2-0.

Mehlville made some noise early in the second half. But Meiners stopped Lauren Guerrero from scoring mid-range.

Schneider put the game away seconds later. She scored on a spin move from inside the box in the 48th minute and followed that with a rising hard shot for the first four-goal game of her high school career.

Kirkwood controlled play throughout the entire game. Juniors Tara Bruns and Kelli Moran played well up front and freshman defender Kacy Jacobs helped keep the Panthers in check.

"I think, since they beat us the first time, we were pretty focused," Cotta said. "We came out hard and got the job done."

Mehlville will host Seckman on Monday night at 7 p.m.