MO Soccer Blog

November 19 - Class 1 and Class 2 Final Four Preview

Location: Lindenwood University, Hunter Stadium, 209 S. Kingshighway St. Charles, MO

Digital Tickets (only tickets available): https://www.mshsaa.org/Tickets.aspx

TV: https://www.mshsaa.tv/

**The staggered start times are due to Lindenwold’s football team still needing the facility for practice during the day Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday and Thursday gates open at 9:30. You only need one ticket per day - make sure you get stamped if you plan on attending both sessions and only digital tickets are available for purchase.**

Class 1
(11) New Heights Christian (13-12) vs. (1) Valley Park (23-3) (+.80) 10 AM

(5) St. Pius X (KC) (17-9-1) vs. (3) Missouri Military Academy (16-4) (+.01) 12:30 

Notes: One thing, intended or not, that the Success Factor in soccer has achieved is the fact that the Final Four squads in Class 1 especially over the past few years have turned over at a high rate. In the past five years, there have been five different champions and only three schools (New Covenant, Maryville and Bishop DuBourg) have multiple appearances over that time. This year isn’t any different as all four schools will be looking for their first titles.

#11 New Heights Christian changed its school name this year (formerly College Heights Christian) and, well, it has led them to new heights after a rocky 1-10 start. The Cougars reached their first Final Four since a three-year run of 4th place finishes from 2002-2004 after a 3-2 win over Sacred heart Saturday at Carl Junction. New Heights (partnering with McAuley Catholic) jumped out to a 3-0 lead and held off a furious Gremlins comeback to capture its seventh consecutive win. The Cougars’ improved defense has been the biggest change. After allowing 50 goals in its first 14 games, New Heights has conceded only six in the past 11 matches.

#1 Valley Park won the 1-2 showdown Saturday against Metro, making a first half goal stand up as the Hawks advanced to their first Final Four. It was the second victory over #2 Metro this year and marked another game in a stressful tournament for VP after a second half goal won the district title over #7 St. Mary’s South Side the week before. The Hawks have been ranked #1 all season the MPR and have a significant MPR advantage over New Heights. Valley Park can beat you in multiple ways - the defense is allowing only .8 goals/match, while the offense has scored at a 4.1 goal/match clip. 

#5 St. Pius (KC) enters its fifth Final Four and first since 2014 as arguably Class 1’s hottest team. The nine losses are deceiving as two were against C2 #2 and semifinalist St. Michael the Archangel and another against C3 semifinalist Van Horn. The Warriors have played a demanding schedule (one of the most difficult in C1) against several upper class teams and have been on a roll since the tourney started - capped with a convincing 4-1 triumph over #4 Lone Jack Saturday. Lone Jack scored in the opening minute and the game was tied at half, but Pius pulled away in the second half. The Warriors’s success comes after six consecutive losing seasons that followed a significant playoff run from 2008-2019 where they won 10 district titles in 11 years.

#3 Missouri Military Academy has waited 32 years for a return trip to the Final Four but that wait is now over after the Colonels eliminated Crocker 4-1 at School of the Osage Saturday. Take away a 10-day period in the middle of the season when MMA went 2-4 over a six-game stretch and the Colonels have been solid, including a current eight-game winning streak. MMA pulled away from Crocker Saturday behind an efficient offense and a sturdier defense than recent Colonel squads have had, allowing 1.3 goals/match, the best mark since 2015. That mark has been helped by a .75 Goals Against Average in the current win streak.

Class 2

(4) Logan-Rogersville (20-5-1) vs. (1) Clayton (18-4) (+1.08) 6 PM

(2) St. Michael the Archangel (19-4) (+.46) vs. (5) Orchard Farm (19-6) 8 PM

Notes: Class 2 will also see a first time champion in what should be an extremely competitive Final Four. Four of the top five squads in the final MO Power Rankings reached the finals (only #4 Logan-Rogersville’s 2-1 2OT win over #3 Bolivar the exception), making this the highest ranked Final Four in any class in recent memory. 

#4 Logan-Rogersville fell one goal short of a perfect season and state title last season in their first trip to a Final Four, bowing to Westminster Christian 1-0 in the C2 finals. The Wildcats haven’t been quite as dominant this season, but have managed to find a way through a brutal state tournament path that saw them slip past #11 Monett 2-1, #3 Bolivar 2-1 in 2OT (the teams’ third match of the season) and #6 Marshall 3-2 in 2OTs on the road. Marshall had jumped to a 2-0 lead before LR rallied, getting the game winner minutes into the 2nd OT. Five of their last nine games (all wins) have been decided by one goal and three came in extra time so another close game should be the norm for them. 

#1 Clayton has been the team to beat most of the season based on the MO Power Rankings and come in to their second Final Four (2010) with a decided advantage in schedule strength over all other C2 teams (3.4 average - only two other schools, Priory and St. Michael’s were at 3 or higher in C2). Clayton played four matches against Final Four squads this year (losing to C4 SLUH 1-0, but beating C3 Vianney 3-1, C3 Ladue 2-1 in penalties and C2 #5 Orchard Farm 5-1.) The Greyhounds haven’t lost since late September, although they did have to sweat out a 1-0 OT win over Priory in D2 finals. Saturday the Greyhounds had it a bit easier in a 3-1 win over Lutheran South.

#2 St. Michael the Archangel finally broke through in its eighth year and will play in its first Final Four after knocking out #9 Excelsior Springs 2-0 with two second half goals and lockdown defensive work in quarterfinal play. Excelsior Springs was seeking its fourth consecutive Final Four. The Guardians have been a little streaky this year and now seem to be back in the middle of a hot one. After opening the season with 14 straight wins, they lost four in a row before bouncing back to win the next five. St. Michael’s has 15 shutouts on the season and hasn’t given up a goal in the postseason yet, while allowing only .5 goals/game. During the four-game losing streak, the goals dried up as the Guardians could only find the net once. One note with the change to Lindenwood, this becomes almost a home game for Orchard Farm. St. Michael’s is just 4-3 in away games, but 8-0 on neutral fields.

#5 Orchard Farm is back for its fourth appearance in the past five seasons, but the Eagles have never quite been able to go the distance yet, finishing second in 2020 and 2022. Last year, Logan-Rogersville took out OF in penalties in the semifinals, adding another tough loss in the Final Four during this historic run for a program that just started in 2016. Like St. Michael’s, Orchard Farm had a four-game losing streak followed by a current five-game winning streak and seem to be playing some of its best soccer after eliminating Moberly on the road 5-1 in the quarters Saturday. The Eagles led 2-1 in the second half when a Moberly red card helped open the gates for a comfortable win. As mentioned, Lindenwood is right down the road from OF, so a nice crowd should give the Eagles a bit of a boost.

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November 15 - Quarterfinal Preview

After ten days of district playoff action the quarterfinals await Saturday with the winners advancing to the MO Final Four that now has a venue and time/date change due to flooding/field damage at World Wide Soccer Park. Instead, the 57th edition of Missouri’s Soccer Championships will move to Hunter Stadium at Lindenwood University in St. Charles with Class 1 and 2 taking place Nov. 20-21 and Class 3 and 4 Nov. 22-23 since there is only a single field set up. Lindenwood hosted the state tournament from 1978-1985. Check on MSHSAA’s website for updated dates and times.

So far we’ve had 194 matches across the state during district play, and with a few exceptions, the top teams in each district survived, making the tournament ahead one of the stronger fields in recent history. 

A look at some numbers:

District Seeding and MO Power Rankings were identical in predicting winners: 165/194 (85.2%). 

16 of the 20 top 5 teams in each class advanced, including all five in C1, four in C2, three in C3 and four in C4. 

Of the 29 upsets, only six came with an MPR difference of .50 or higher. The biggest upset of the tournament was Northland Christian’s 3-1 win over Frontier STEM (+3.45) in the C1 D8 opening round. Fun note to that game, Frontier had beat Northland 8-0 in the last regular season game. Only one other game had a difference of over 1, STEAM Academy’s 2-1 win over Canton (+1.06) in C1. The other four over .5 could all be considered local/rivalry games which have a tendency to even out the playing field. Blue Springs over Blue Springs South, Lee’s Summit over Lee’s Summit West. St. Pius X (Festus) over Saxony Lutheran and Parkway West over Webster Groves all fit the bill and all were by one goal.

District hosts went 12 for 32 in winning championships. C1 - 4/8, C2 - 3/8, C3 - 3/8 and C4 2/8.

Key: School (MO Power Ranking) (+point differential between the two teams with the higher ranked team having the +). The higher the point total difference, the more that team is “favored” based on season results.

Class 1
Notes: All four favored teams will be on the road, which might level the playing field some due to travel and unfamiliar surroundings, BUT three of those four games are being hosted on neutral fields. Only St. Pius X (KC) will be hosting on its own field. Valley Park-Metro will feature the two teams atop the final C1 MPR rankings and the two teams who have been on top of the rankings since late September. Valley Park beat Metro 3-1 earlier…New Heights Christian upset #1 seed Greenwood 3-1, but New Heights was actually the higher-ranked team by MPR. Lone Jack and St. Pius had nearly identical MPR scores, which should make for an entertaining quarter. Lone Jack opened the season 0-2 but has won 20 of its last 21. St. Pius X had the strongest schedule of the eight remaining teams, with Crocker having the weakest schedule. Missouri Military Academy won its first district since 2018. Sacred Heart is looking to get back to the Final Four for the first time since a four-year run ended in 2017. All C1 Final Four teams from last season have been eliminated so C1 will continue its run of fresh faces in the finals. Three of the four from last year all moved up a class due to the Success Factor.

Valley Park (1) (+.13) at Metro (2) 1:00 at Gateway STEM

Sacred Heart (8) (+.14) at New Heights Christian (11) 2:00 at Carl Junction

Missouri Military Academy (3) (+.76) at Crocker (13) 2:00 at School of the Osage

Lone Jack (4) (+.01) at St. Pius (KC) (5) 4:00

Class 2
Notes: C2 also stayed close to the MPR results, with only #4 Logan-Rogersville’s 2-1 2OT win over #3 Bolivar the blemish in having the top three alive. #1 Clayton has the largest MPR advantage of any game Saturday and will be a tough out at home against a Lutheran South squad that won D1 as the 2 seed. Moberly pulled off two upsets in D4 to advance but will be the lowest ranked MPR team left in any class and faces a tough match at home against Orchard Farm, last year’s third place finisher. St. Michael the Archangel has been at either #1 or #2 all season long in C2 but has a tricky task on the road at Excelsior Springs. St. Michael seeks its first Final Four while playoff-experienced Excelsior Springs is looking for its 4th straight trip. Three of last year’s Final Four teams are still alive - the only exception is 2023 champ Westminster Christian, which moved to C3 due to the Success Factor.


Lutheran South (14) at Clayton (1) (+1.58) 5:00

Logan-Rogersville (4) (+.14) at Marshall (6) 1:00

Orchard Farm (5) (+.83) at Moberly (28) 1:00

St. Michael the Archangel (2) (+.55) at Excelsior Springs (9) 1:00

Class 3 
Notes: Six of the top 8 in C3 advanced. Van Horn, a 3 seed, eliminated defending champion East KC 3-1 in the D8 finals while also getting a measure of revenge after falling to East in last year’s quarters. The Falcons will host Pembroke Hill, back in the playoffs for the first time since 2020. Van Horn slipped past the Raiders 2-1 Oct. 24 so the two teams will be quite familiar with each other. #2 Vianney has the biggest MPR advantage when it hosts #22 Farmington, a team that lost three of four entering the playoffs, but found its form in D1. Vianney coach Brian Haddock is seeking to win a girls title (Nerinx Hall) and a boys title in the same year. #1 Ladue, last year’s Cinderella runner-up in a season that nearly didn’t happen due to suspensions, has a tough task on the road against an athletic and dangerous Hannibal squad that finally broke into the state playoffs for the first time since 2013. Hannibal has won 21 straight. D5 3 seed Borgia took out two consecutive Jefferson City schools (#2 Helias and #1 Cap City) in Jefferson City for the right to travel to #4 Springfield Catholic. The Irish own a 14-game winning streak. Two Final Four participants from ’23 are still alive - Ladue and Springfield Catholic. 

Farmington (22) at Vianney (2) (+1.17) 12:00

St. Francis Borgia (16) at Springfield Catholic (4) (+.64) 1:00

Ladue Horton Watkins (1) (+.70) at Hannibal (8) 4:00

Pembroke Hill (6) (+.04) at Van Horn (7) 6:00

Class 4
Notes: It’s no surprise that the C4 favorite is #1 Rockhurst, the three-time defending C4 champ and winner of 10 titles overall. The Hawklets, seeking to become the first four-time consecutive boys champ in state history, haven’t lost to a MO team since mid-October 2022 and will be heavily favored at home against Glendale. However, Glendale’s only two blemishes came against playoff teams (SLUH and Liberty North) and Coach Jeff Rogers is closing in on 1100 career wins overall so the Falcons will be well-prepared. #4 Lindbergh, last year’s 3rd place finisher, travels to #3 DeSmet in what should be a dandy. DeSmet survived back to back MCC teams (Chaminade and CBC) in its district and look for a return to the Final Four for the first time since winning it in 2019. The SLUH/Liberty (Wentzville) matchup also promises to be special as the two have shown to be challengers all year. SLUH rallied from a two-goal halftime deficit to take out perennial November darling John Burroughs 3-2 in 2OT, while Liberty upset #2 St. Dominic 3-2, also in 2OT. Liberty seeks its first Final Four and SLUH looks to go back for the first time since 2013 and 17th overall. The final quarter has #7 Rock Bridge back on the road at #15 Liberty North. The Bruins played all three district games nearly two hours away in Blue Springs and will make the longer trek to Liberty to play the Eagles. Liberty North ousted last year’s runner-ups Park Hill South in penalties, while the Bruins held off upset-minded Blue Springs 2-1. LN seeks its first Final Four. 

Lindbergh (4) at DeSmet Jesuit (3) (+.29) 1:00

Glendale (6) at Rockhurst (1) (+.72) 12:00

SLUH (8) at Liberty (Wentzville) (5) (+.30) 2:00

Rock Bridge (7) (+.40) at Liberty North (15) 5:00

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The boys season concluded a little over two weeks ago and we have been busy with end of the season awards, recognition and all the odds and ends that go with our association. Our final blog of 2023 focuses on wrapping up the boys season and a little bit of fun at the end.

First off, congratulations to the 2023 state champs - first timers Westminster Christian (C2) and East (KC) (C3) joined the championship school list, while Duchesne (C1) added its third title and first since 2003. A huge congrats to Rockhurst, who not only won its 10th title (T-2nd for most overall), but also its third in a row and even topped that with a United Soccer Coaches National Championship! The ending of the C4 game with a very worthy Park Hill South squad certainly will be considered one of the more epic finishes to a championship.

In the week that followed the finals we were able to release our All Region and All State players, while also selecting our MO All Americans and All Central Region players for the United Soccer Coaches. Those players were selected after nominations from coaches and a state-wide voting process. Our number of players are determined by how many coaches we have registered with the United Soccer Coaches and players honored must have coaches who are members of the United Soccer Coaches. The MO list is in our Boys Awards section of our website.

In addition, we also honored our Coaches of the Year with the United Soccer Coaches. There are three categories and three honorees who will now be up for the Regional Coach of the Year Award (the Central Region has six states - MO, KS, IL, SD, ND and MT) and regional winners are then up for the National Coach of the Year, which will be announced in January at the convention in Anaheim. This year’s winners: Large - Gerzo Guerrero (East KC), Small - Brett Wubbena (Logan-Rogersville) and Private - Daniel Legters (Westminster Christian).

Our Boys Academic Teams were also announced last week - we have expanded the fields over the past few years to included a Small and a Large School Academic Team and as always we had an impressive list of nominations and honorees. We factor in three different areas (Academics/School, Soccer and Community) and the impact that each student-athlete has to his respective program.

This week we will be sorting out our final awards - Assistant Coach of the Year, Team Sportsmanship Award, Field of the Year, Select Brand Coach of the Year, Administrator of the Year and Champion of the Game. Those will be announced sometime next week.

Unfortunately, we were not able to have a banquet this year to celebrate all the accomplishments from the year that was. We have provided free digital All Region, All State and All Academic certificates to the coaches to print as needed and have a small window open for any of those players (Boys or Girls) who won any of the All State or Academic Awards to order plaques and T-shirts. (Sorry, no All Region plaques are available.)  The deadline to order awards WITH T-SHIRTS is DECEMBER 11 and the PLAQUES ONLY deadline is DECEMBER 15. We hope to have all of these shipped out in early-mid January. Details and a link to order are on our main web page.

Finally, we have posted the 2023 Boys Strength of Schedule with a slight tweak this year that has sent us down a few hypothetical rabbit holes. We broke the schools down by success (using our MO Power Rankings) over THIS season into four “classes” and a team’s Strength of Schedule was formed by multiplying the Opponent’s Win Percentage with an adjusted Average Class Size Played against.

In the past, we used MSHSAA’s classifications (the four classes used in the state playoff system) as one of our multipliers, but we figured a better indication of the strength of schedule was by the success of the team played against and not just a designated class size mostly done by enrollment.  The reality is that there are some C1 teams who are stronger than C4 teams so we wanted to get a better representation of how difficult the schedules were based on success during the 2023 season. For example, C1 finalists Duchesne (31st) and Bishop DuBourg (35th) each had MPR scores that would place them in the C4 category, so playing against them gave a “4” toward Opponent Size instead of a “1” if we used the MSHSAA classifications.

The “new” classes are at the bottom of the Overall Strength of Schedule page. These were based on MPR scores at the end of the year. Interestingly enough, there were 8-10 schools whose MPR class would have changed if we had used the final regular season (10-27) MPR. For the competition purists out there, these four new classes would likely have made for a better match of alike teams as an end of the season tournament (about as close to our own promotion/relegation as we can get). Again, MSHSAA’s direction is to have the state tournament based on enrollment and geographical representation - our toying with the system is just for fun, but it does lead to some interesting possibilities if explored.

For example, one of the big concerns with the current MSHSAA system is that it often leads to huge mismatches in tournament play - games that end early and usually with some unfortunate scores (MSHSAA “mercy” rules stipulate that a game ends when their is an 8-goal difference, but at least 40 mins must be played, so we ended up wth some games that were won by more than 8 goals). None of this is great for the teams, players or the sport itself. In fact, there were 20 tournament games with MPR differences of 2.0 and higher. The average score difference in those 20 games was 7.45. There were also 20 games played with an MPR difference of 1.51-1.99. The average goal differential in those games was 5.35.

In short, roughly 1/6 of the matches played in the state tournament pitted teams in the same MSHSAA class, but not in the same “competitive class.” As the differences in “competitive class” dropped, the games became closer. An MPR difference of 1-1.5 in 28 games played had an average goal differential of 4, but once the MPR difference went to under 1, the goal difference in games dropped to 2.36 over 153 games, which meant that MOST of those games pitted two teams of similar capabilities at least based on final scores.

There were only four teams who won games with an MPR score difference of -1.0 and above in the tournament, with STEAM’s 5-3 win over Soldan setting the mark as the biggest upset (-1.80). The other three upsets were all closer to -1.0 (St. Charles West over City -1.18, Saxony Lutheran over Perryville -1.07 and Northwest over Jackson -1.05).

As a point of reference, our “new” classes looked like this - again they are at the bottom of the overall Strength of Schedule page:
Class 4: MPR of 3.5 and above (37 teams).
Class 3: MPR of 2.8-3.4999 (60 teams)
Class 2: MPR 2-2.7999 (73 teams)
Class 1: MPR of 1.999 and below (53 teams)

We posted an overall list as well as each (MSHSAA) class for easier reference.

One thing to note, playing a stronger schedule can be both a benefit (Ladue being a prime example - reaching the C3 finals with a 12-15 mark but the 16th toughest schedule overall) and a drawback (STL power conference MCC didn’t have one FF team this year but all 5 teams finished in the top 9 of SoS and MPR which just goes to show how difficult it is to even reach a FF).

Our state champion with the highest Strength of Schedule, Rockhurst, had the 20th toughest schedule BUT the lowest SoS of the C4 Final Four teams. Westminster Christian (60) was the only state champ to have the toughest schedule in the Final Four (and #2 overall in C2 behind Barstow). East (KC) (77) also played the easiest schedule of the C3 FF teams (a contrasting to runner-up Ladue) while Duchesne (103) was behind runner-up Bishop DuBourg (59) but ahead of Maryville and Laquey.

And with that…we are mostly done with the 2023 season.

Don’t forget to order those awards and have a great, safe and healthy holiday and new year ahead!

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