The ultimate leader, Saxony Lutheran's Brune earns Southeast Missourian Girls Soccer Player of the Year

Most teenage girls do not love PowerPoint. Therein lies the caveat with Maddie Brune -- she is not most.

Most high school soccer players don't suffer major knee injuries right in the heart of their recruiting window and persevere. Most don't act as a de facto coach. Most don't form personal bonds with talismanic spirit sticks. Most don't lead their teams to a state championship from the sidelines, and then do it again from the heart of the action.

All-Missourian soccer - Maddie Brune - Saxony Lutheran High SchoolLaura Simon

But with absolute certainty, they do not love PowerPoint.

"That was always Maddie," says Logan Welker, longtime friend and teammate since their pre-K days. "I don't even know how to describe her. I don't have the word for her."

Of the stories Brune's teammates share, most talk of their captain offering her wisdom through digital locker room slideshows.

The mere mention of her infamous PowerPoint presentations makes Brune bubble to near giddiness. For a soccer nerd in every sense of the word, the Saxony Lutheran standout's instructional and motivational presentations are her 12-sided die; her sonic screwdriver; her "Bazinga!"

"I love making PowerPoints," Brune says. "Last year I made PowerPoints all the time to explain runs and things like that. I pulled them out again this year and made some new ones. They all have motivational stuff and tips for each position."

PowerPoints, of course, are not the story of Brune's success, but they are symbolic of what is -- the chart-topping soccer IQ, the extra work put in and the devotion and dedication to the game and her teammates.

Those are the things that pushed Brune to 18 goals and 17 assists while being her team's most indispensable player, leading -- always leading -- the Crusaders to a second straight Class 1 state championship while earning the title of Class 1 Player of the Year. Now, she's the 2016 Southeast Missourian Girls Soccer Player of the Year.

"That leadership, that drive that she has, is rare in high school athletes in any sport," Saxony girls soccer coach Garrett Fritsche says. "She goes out there and no matter what, if she sees something wrong, she goes out and fixes it, whether it's herself or a teammate. She wants to make sure everyone is playing the best that they can."

------

All-Missourian soccer - Maddie Brune - Saxony Lutheran High SchoolLaura Simon

What, exactly, goes into a Maddie Brune PowerPoint?

Saxony Lutheran's Maddie Brune wrapped up her final varsity season with 18 goals and 17 assists as the team captain.Laura Simon

"A Maddie Brune PowerPoint has a killer title," teammate Grace Mirly says. "You know, you've got to start out strong. She's got great graphics -- pictures popping up all over the place; and always inspirational music -- she likes her Fetty Wap, I'll tell you. She likes her inspirational quotes to get everyone fired up and on the same page."

By all accounts, Brune came out of the womb a leader. That may not have been evident when she first stepped on to the field as a 4-year-old, when, in her own words, "to be completely honest, my first year all I did was pick flowers and do cartwheels," but it didn't take long for the traits that have made her a dominant force to become clear.

Saxony teammate Brianna Mueller met Brune at the age of 7 or 8 on the indoor soccer field, playing with and against boys.

"She was just as she is now -- she was aggressive, and if anyone got in her way, she was going to go right through them," Mueller says. "She didn't care who you were or how big you were, she was going to plow you over. So I was a little intimidated by her. That's how we first met. I don't know if we ever really talked to each other because I was scared of her."

A lot has happened since then, but little has changed (no Saxony game was complete without the shouting and complaining of opposing parents when their daughters were muscled off the ball by Brune and, alas, no whistle came).

Saxony Lutheran's Maddie Brune scores off a free kick in a semifinal win over Father Tolton in the Class 1 girls soccer final four in Kansas City, Missouri. Brune scored three goals at state, including the lone strike in a 1-0 championship victory.Kit Doyle ~ Special to the Southeast Missourian

In the third grade, she graduated from her rec soccer roots to the Southeast Missouri Soccer Club, where she met many girls whose careers would run parallel to hers all the way into high school. It soon became apparent that the sport was going to be more than just a passing hobby, and that both Brune's dedication and the challenge in front of her needed to more closely match her passion.

Enter St. Louis Scott Gallagher, the Elite Clubs National League program Brune joined during her sophomore year at Saxony. If the engine of Brune's career was already humming -- she was impactful for the Crusaders from the second she stepped foot through the door -- SLSG was like injecting rocket fuel.

"As I got older, I realized [soccer] is what I wanted to do. I didn't want to stop after high school, and I knew I wanted to play in college," Brune says. "So my mom thought it would be a good idea to go up to St. Louis because I wasn't getting any exposure down here. ... That's when [college] coaches started recognizing me, started knowing who I was, and that whole time, I'd been going to camps and sending emails out."

The commitment bore fruit, but it also made life complicated. Practices were held three times a week in the evening, and the four-hour round trip left Brune with room for little else but soccer, often getting home at midnight and still having to find a way to study and complete homework. Weekends left her traveling for showcases and tournaments all over the country, often eight or nine hours away.

"Soccer was something I wanted to do so incredibly bad in college, and I was willing to do anything to reach that goal," Brune says. "I'm not going to lie. That whole process of going up to St. Louis was probably the hardest thing in my life. ... But now I can say I would not have wanted it any other way, and I'm so glad I did that because of where I am now."

The sacrifices paid off during Brune's junior year, when she was contacted by Troy University, a Division I school in Alabama. She fell in love with the school and the program and committed in February of 2015.

She tore her medial collateral ligament (MCL) a month later, ending her season and raising uncomfortable questions about what the future held.

"It was very, very hard for her, and it was very hard to watch that," fellow Crusader Tess Daniel says. "Soccer is her thing, always has been. Soccer is her life. To see her not be able to do that was really difficult, and it just broke my heart completely. But she didn't let that stop her from contributing to the team. She was like, 'I may not be able to physically help the team on the field, but I can help them off the field.'"

------

For most, a season-ending knee injury slides firmly into the "terrible things" category, but Brune's could not be so easily categorized.

"She took that terrible thing that happened to her as a junior -- trying to be recruited, trying to go to a D1 school -- and just embraced it and made the most of it," Fritsche says. "I don't know if I'll ever see an athlete take an injury and gain more than you would on the field."

But Brune did. In fact, it's fair to say 2016 wouldn't have gone the way it ultimately did if she hadn't suffered through the disappointment and frustration of 2015.

While her teammates won the program's first state championship, Brune developed a new clarity in her role as leader. She wasn't able to put her foot into the ball or shoulder off an opposing midfielder, but she was able to inspire her teammates.

"I would go up to her and say, 'Maddie, I need help with this. Tell me what to do.' And she would sit down and talk to me and help me through that," Daniel says. "There would be times I'd be kind of upset or angry or just, not embarrassed but I just didn't want to address something with the coaches or something like that. She was able to be there not only as a friend but also as someone who knows a lot about soccer.

Maddie Brune defends against St. Vincent in the Class 1 District 1 championship.Josh Mlot ~ jmlot@semissourian.com

"She knows so much about soccer that I knew whatever she said was going to be right."

Brune was a very good player and leader, but as an injured junior, she became more of both.

If a team is a living, breathing organism, Brune became its pumping, beating heart in a way that was incredibly tangible. Her recovery, though, was not easy. Beyond the grueling rehab, Brune faced a crisis of confidence upon her return to the field this spring.

"First, when I came back, things were rough for me," Brune says. "I struggled for a little bit, and I got very frustrated with myself and questioned, 'Why am I still doing this?'

"I think the first few games -- and you can have my coach second me on this one -- I was not myself. I didn't have the same upbeat attitude as I normally do; I was criticizing absolutely everything I did. I think that, actually, worsened it. My mind took over. Your mind is always your worst enemy. ... My coaches always talked to me about it, especially at first, saying, 'We need you to step up and be a leader and not let your frustrations leak over to the rest of the team. You can't show them that weakness.'"

She never did. As her time on the field increased, so did her confidence -- there became little question as to whether or not Brune had lost a step. Combined with a year as a complete student of the game, Brune was actually better. Or, at least, made an even bigger impact on her team.

Dominant physically and offering a complete skill set, Brune, who typically worked as a right midfielder, played every position on the field except goalkeeper this season. Often times her versatility changed games, affording Fritsche and assistant coach Chris Crawford the flexibility to make tactical adjustments that took advantage of her ability.

Never was that more apparent than in the Class 1 title game when, looking to scrape out something in a scoreless game, Brune made a halftime switch to a role she'd never played for the Crusaders -- striker. Brune questioned her coaches' sanity, and then scored the game's lone goal in the 44th minute, using her signature strength to hold off multiple defenders and finish a corner kick.

It was the perfect ending to her career.

"Scoring the lone goal at the state championship, that was probably the biggest thing for me," Brune says. "Just because not getting to play the year before, not really getting to have a part in the first state championship, and then getting to seal the deal in the second one, I couldn't have pictured it to be any better."

Brune is uncomfortable with the long overdue recognition she's received this year. She admits it. Her teammates talk about how the spotlight makes her squirm a little. She deflects credit to all of her teammates, yet there's little question she made all of them better.

Brune will head to Troy next year, and she's looking forward to not having the spotlight on her -- to having to prove herself when she won't be the best player on the field. She'll continue her journey with Mirly, who will be playing softball for the Trojans. Mirly calls Brune one of her biggest inspirations, saying, "Just thinking about it brings a smile to my face. I'm so happy that Maddie Brune is the one I'm going to college with."

The void left at Saxony Lutheran will be a large one.

Gone will be the lucky spirit stick -- "I don't think [Troy] knows I have the stick yet, but once they do, we're going to be winning the Sun Belt Conference, that's for sure." Gone will be the pregame speeches before every contest. Gone will be the level-headed peer coach. Gone will be the PowerPoint presentations.

Gone will be the heartbeat of Saxony soccer.

"We're going to have to find someone else to do some pregame speeches. My job's definitely been, I wouldn't say easy," Fritsche says with a laugh, "but it's been great to have someone just step up and take control. We didn't even ask her for that. As far as PowerPoints go, I'm going to have to make sure she sends that to us so we can use them.

"She was a stud when she came in, she flat-out dominated and she's going out as one of the best athletes in this area in soccer ever."