HANNIBAL, Mo. – Heading into their season finale against the Hickman Kewpies in 2023, Hannibal girls soccer saw their nine-game winning streak come to a tough end losing to Hickman by a single goal.
Fast forward to this year’s regular season finale and they avenged that loss by defeating Hickman Monday night in overtime 3-2 ending the regular season on a nine-game winning streak.
“Going into overtime having that experience knowing all the pressure was on us right there knowing we give up a goal it’s over and the girls went out and responded,” said Hannibal head coach Eric Hill. “We played great, so couldn’t ask for a better way to get us prepared for postseason.”
The opening half saw another vintage solid defensive performance from Hannibal holding Hickman scoreless for the entire half. Junior Ashley Davis would score the lone goal to give Hannibal a 1-0 halftime lead.
“I thought we were playing really well in the beginning we had some chances to put one or two more goals away and we just didn’t and we kind of fell apart there in the second half,” Hill said.
Hickman would make things pretty uncomfortable coming out of the break as they looked like they were primed to defeat Hannibal again in back-to-back season finales. They would score back to back goals at the 10:56 and 10:06 marks to go up 2-1.
Davis spoke on competing in these high-pressure tight battles and the impact it has with postseason soccer coming up.
“This was a great game to go into the playoffs with because we’re going to play some tough games like that in districts and we got to be able to finish like we did tonight,” Davis said.
Davis would end the game with an assist to go along with his goal. After Hannibal’s scoring rut for most of the second half, freshman Aly Falconer would score to tie the game up at 2-2.
Both sides would head into an exciting overtime finish afterwards.
Hill on what the message was to the team heading into overtime.
“They were flying to the ball, defending and unfortunately we gave up a lot of corner kicks,” Hill said. “That’s what we talked about at the start of overtime, let’s not give up any more corner kicks because we gave up a bunch of them. “We weren’t marking well, we were giving up too many chances, getting hurried so to see us give up that lead go down and then respond the way we did that’s awesome to see this time of year.”
In a fitting end to their regular season, the Lady Pirates lead goal scorer junior Abbie Martin would score the game-winning goal to earn Hannibal their 20th win of the season.
Martin spoke on what she saw on that last-minute goal to seal the deal.
“The defender kind of had a bad touch on the ball, I ended up getting it and there was a lot of space in front of me,” Martin said. “I saw the left corner wide open and I just took the shot.”
She went on to talk about how proud she is to be a part of a dominant 20-win team and her confidence level in their chances of going far in district play.
“I’m really proud of our team this year, we came through and won these 20 games,” said Martin. “Last year we won a lot but this year has been really special to us and I think going into districts we’re “It’s going to play really well.”
The Lady Pirates are playing great soccer to close out the regular season and with so many different options offensively and defensively a primed long postseason looks well within their grasp.
Hill talked about how he thinks teams will try to stop them and the confidence he has in their team as a whole being able to still succeed.
“We’ve got a lot of offensive weapons, to where other teams can’t key in on one person, I’m sure teams are going to try and shut down Abbie (Martin),” Hill said. “But if they do we’ve shown we can score other ways, we had three different scorers tonight. So, I think other girls can get it done.”
Hannibal ends the season not just with an outstanding 20-2-2 record but also an undefeated record at home with an 11-0-1 record.
They now will look to generate that same elite play in postseason play this weekend in the Class 3 District 4 Tournament.
Hannibal (20-2-2) will open up district play against Ft. Zumwalt East (4-14) at 1 pm
Hill on what’s held them back the last few postseasons and why being healthy will finally give them some added juice.
“One thing is we’re healthy going into districts and we haven’t been healthy going into districts for a long time,” said Hill. “Being healthy and having everyone available is going to be huge because I think we’ve had the potential last couple years to advance and just were unlucky.”
