Maddie Brune helping Saxony Lutheran girls soccer team despite torn MCL

Saxony Lutheran junior Maddie Brune sat near midfield while her teammates practiced in the days leading up to their trip to the Class 1 girls soccer final four, which begins today at Blue Springs High School in Blue Springs, Missouri.

A brace encompassed the right knee of Brune, who has committed to play soccer at Troy, a Division I university in Alabama.

The Crusaders' standout midfielder has been sidelined since she tore her MCL during a game against Jackson on March 31, but it hasn't kept her from impacting her team as it reached new heights this season.

While her on-field contributions have diminished, she's made up for it by motivating and teaching her teammates as well as bridging a gap between coaches and players.

"I told her when she got hurt, after we found out she was done, I told her she'd be the most important player on this team, and it turned out she was," Saxony coach Garrett Fritsche said. "She's stepped up during practice, during games. She, as a fellow teammate, relates to the players at a different level, and if we can't get something across, something isn't quite clicking, she seems to be able to step in. And it's like, 'OK, they understand it.' She puts it in their terms. She's turned out to be a great leader off the field."

Saxony Lutheran's Maddie Brune, left, talks with Brianna Mueller during halftime of the Class 1 District 1 championship Thursday, May 21, 2015 in Perryville, Missouri. (Glenn Landberg)

Brune already was considered to be one of the team's top leaders on the pitch by controlling the middle of the field and also spurring the team's communication. Now she's using her view outside of the action to pass along helpful tips and insight to her teammates as well as maintaining her encouraging talk.

"It's been really tough, but I've been playing through my team," Brune said. "They've really helped me just kind of cope with it a little bit and kept me encouraged and upbeat."

Saxony (22-2) suffered back-to-back losses after Brune went down with her knee injury.

The Crusaders lost to Jackson 4-1 in their sixth game of the season when the injury occurred and lost to St. Pius X of Festus 2-1 one week later. They've since won 17 in a row.

"We're low on numbers to begin with, but then when she played such a huge role on the field as a leader, as a player, as everything, and losing her was -- I'm not going to lie -- hard to bounce back from," junior midfielder Brianna Mueller said. "With a role like hers, it's just so hard to fill that position. I think we've done a really good job. We've had a lot of people step up and tried to fill that role. I would say that it has not been filled fully because no one can take Maddie's spot as a player or as a leader on the field, but I think we've done a really good job stepping up and trying to fill that role."

Brune scored five goals and had seven assists before her season ended. Fritsche laughed when he said that "everyone" has picked up the slack for her absence rather than just one or two players but said junior Grace Mirly and Mueller's presence as vocal leaders has helped.

"Communication is something that we've been working on all season, and they continue to get better at. And that's the key -- when we talk, we're successful," Brune said. "I think just working as a team, which they do fantastic, and just talking."

Junior Tess Daniel believes the team's consistent effort has led to the Crusaders first berth in the state tournament, which they'll begin at noon today in a semifinal against Barstow.

"Even if we're playing a team that maybe isn't amazing ... we always work on everything that we possibly can to prepare for the next game," Daniel said. "We always say -- it's one of Maddie's favorite sayings -- that any team can be beaten on any given day, and so we always want to prepare for that and just always give 100 percent effort every single day. And I think that's one of our biggest motivators."

That work ethic has been what Fritsche, who's in his first year as the head coach after helping the program over the previous five years, has been most impressed with this season. The 2009 graduate of Saxony, who recalled losing 2-1 in the quarterfinals to eventual Class 1 boys soccer runner-up Trinity Catholic during his senior season, believes his team is in its best form of the year after its 3-0 quarterfinal victory over Principia.

"It's awesome. Senior year I fell short in quarterfinals, so the whole week leading up to it I was like, 'Oh, man, please let us get through,'" Fritsche said. "It was great. They stepped up. They came out to play. That might possibly be the best game I've ever seen them play in these three years. They played hard. They did what we asked, and they never gave up. If you give up for a couple seconds somebody can slip one in, but right from the get-go we got that early goal. And they just played awesome. It was a great game to watch."

The Crusaders won their first district title in program history as well as their first state quarterfinal to reach today's game. Saxony didn't have to win a state sectional game due to fewer teams in Class 1 with the addition of a fourth class this year.

Several of the Crusaders have experienced the stage of a state final four when Saxony advanced to the state tournament in basketball in 2014 and finished fourth.

"These are the things that you're never going to forget," Mueller said. "Even if we go there and we don't win, it's the memories with our teammates and our coaches that we're never going to forget."

Even though Brune's unable to contribute physically, she's still enthusiastic about sharing the memories from this weekend with her teammates.

"I'm so excited for them and just to be there and just the whole atmosphere and everything," Brune said. "I couldn't be more proud of them and all that they've accomplished this season. I just hope that for two more games they can pull it out."

The Crusaders (22-2) have won 17 consecutive games entering the state semifinals. Saxony, which has a roster made up of 11 juniors and seven freshman, has posted shutouts in 15 of its games this season and has yet to be shut out by an opponent.

Junior forward Grace Mirly leads the Crusaders with 33 goals and also has 11 assists, and junior midfielder Brianna Mueller has 14 goals and 15 assists.

Ali Galemmo, an all-state defender who moved to forward for her junior season, has 13 goals and nine assists. Six other players have three or more goals.

Junior Raegan Wieser has recorded 15 shutouts in her first season as a full-time goalkeeper. She's made 95 saves and has allowed just 14 goals, including only one in the last 11 games.

The Knights (15-2-2) from Kansas City are led by a pair of junior forwards in Bailey Childers and Lauren Bernard.

Childers has scored 31 goals and has 11 assists while Bernard has 19 goals and five assists. Six other Barstow players have combined for the Knights' remaining 24 goals.

Senior goalkeeper Jane Velghe has recorded 10 shutouts and has only allowed 11 goals.

The Knights have won six of their last seven after a couple of ties with Class 4 Waynesville and Class 3 Hillsboro snapped a seven-game winning streak.

Barstow defeated Lutheran (Kansas City), which reached the Class 1 final four last year, 2-1 for its district title and won its quarterfinal 2-1 over Summit Christian Academy.

The Titans (17-4) have won eight of their last nine games entering the final four, with their lone loss being a 2-1 defeat by Class 2 state semifinalist St. Pius X of Festus, which also defeated Saxony in one of its two losses by the same score.

Junior forward Morgan Clark, junior midfielder Melanie Gubicya and sophomore midfielder Kierstyn Weaver have all scored 10 or more goals. Clark has 18 goals and 14 assists, Gubicya has 11 goals and 13 assists and Weaver has 10 goals and eight assists.

Junior Jessica Eaton has served as the Titans' primary goalie, recording 11 shutouts and allowing only 16 goals with 109 saves.

The Trailblazers (19-6) have won eight in a row and 16 of their last 17 after a four-game losing streak in the early portion of the season.

One of their losses came at the hands of Saxony, which won 2-1 on April 17 in the Spartan Invitational in Moberly.

Sophomore Forward Lindsey Wright leads Father Tolton with 27 goals and 14 assists. Senior midfielders Heidi Gundy and Andrea Wikle have 16 and eight goals, respectively, and 14 assists apiece.

Freshman goalkeeper Hana Dietz has nine shutouts and recorded 92 saves. She's allowed 26 goals.