The Cassville girls soccer team nearly doubled its win total from the 2021 season, but a firstround district exit left the Lady Wildcats at 9 wins.

Jake Forste, Cassville soccer coach, said the mantra of the season was team-wide improvement, and that occurred.

“We improved collectively in goal, and with our defense especially,” he said. “We were allowing about 2.0 goals per game, which is about where we want to be. All of our front four were in new spots, too, so they kind of grew up together and into those roles as the season went along.”

Leading that growth was a hefty class of nine seniors — Christina Marlowe, Jaycie Ertel, Jhandi Shears, Landry Parnell, Emilee Mann, Elizabeth Ray, Lexie Sanders, Jasmine Brown and Avery Crain.

“We had nine seniors, and of those, probably eight played consistently,” Forste said. “We’ll lose three on the back line, one in the midfield, two wide attackers and two off the bench. That whole group was pretty awesome to be around. When you have several young players, this was a great group to learn from. And, the younger players could play in JV games and not have to be thrown into the fire.”

The leadership led to some high points this season, including a pair of wins over rival Monett and a rout of McDonald County.

“Beating Monett twice is never a bad feeling,” Forste said. “Our best overall performance was when we beat McDonald County 8-0 after they played a few conference games really close. We had an offensive explosion that night.”

While that was a high-scoring affair, Forste said going forward, a more level number of goals each game is what he wants.

“Scoring consistently has been an issue,” Forste said. “If you look at the numbers, we score in bunches, then we get shut out for a few games, then we score a bunch again. We need to be better at scoring 2-3 a game.”

The Lady Wildcats had also hoped this season to win a district game, but they fell to New Covenant Academy in the opening round, 2-0.

“More or less, we achieved our goals,” Forste said. “We would have liked to have won a district game or two, but we played well in districts and came up short. We’d like a top three conference finish, and we were fourth, but that’s neither here nor there. This was a fun group to be around and the games were competitive, win or lose, and that’s all you can ask for.”

Next season, the Lady Wildcats return a number of underclassmen starters, including new single-season assist record holder, sophomore Emma Berndt, who dished 7 this year.

“We will be working in a lot of new players,” Forste said. “But, the spine of the team is good. We have a thirdyear starter in goal in Emerson Grossman, and [sophomore] Scotlyn Richardson will return at center back. Emma will return with 7 assists, and [sophomore] Audrey Gosvener had 7 goals.

“We will build off those, and with a couple of new players and first-year seniors, we should be back to about where we were this year.”