Oakies feeling good

By: Ben McClanahan, Sports Writer

Elliot J. Sutherland
Cara Cecil, left, and the Oak Park girls soccer team continued its strong start to the season by winning the Winnetonka Tournament on Saturday, March 31. After an injury-plagued season in 2006, the Oakies are off to a 5-1 start.

For a team that had almost as many knee injuries as victories last season, the excitement level for the Oak Park girls soccer team Saturday, March 31, was understandable.

Seconds after Oakies coach Jake Sirna was handed the championship trophy from the Winnetonka Tournament, Oak Park senior Sarah Jackson grabbed it and ran behind the team's bench to celebrate with her teammates.

“It feels good,” Jackson said. “Definitely after four years, being on a losing team, it's a good start to start off that way and win a tournament.”

A 3-1 win over Winnetonka in their final game of the tournament capped off a perfect 3-0 weekend for the Oakies, who also improved to 5-1 on the season. Oak Park also picked up a 10-0 win over Grandview and a big, 2-1 win over Smithville in the tournament opener on March 30.

“Our seniors are thrilled about the season so far,” Sirna said. “… It's not perfect by any means. We've got a lot of stuff we've got to work on still, but for us to be 5-1 this early in the season, it's been a lot of moral victories and emotional victories.”

It was only a year ago that Oak Park finished its season with five knee injuries and seven wins, but the result was a lot of younger players seeing a lot of varsity minutes. This season, with seven seniors and an experienced group of underclassmen, the Oakies are finally starting to see some results.

“We've had bad seasons in the past, so we're trying to build off that and become a better team,” Jackson said. “We have more experienced players. We're all healthy. No one's got any knee injuries like last year, so we're just working hard. The two freshmen (Emilee Davison and Shelby Buckman) are definitely stepping up and the sophomores, I think we have about seven or eight of them, a lot of them got a lot of time last year, so they're really stepping up and playing hard.”

Oak Park fell behind 1-0 early against Smithville before sophomore Shelby Frisby tied the game just before halftime on a restart. The Oakies' offense kept the pressure on in the second half and netted another goal, by junior Ashley Ehrhardt, off a deflection to win the game.

The following morning, on March 31, the Oakies defeated Grandview 10-0. Davison scored two goals for Oak Park, and Buckman, Frisby, Jackson, Witney Macken, Whitney Lowe, Cara Cecil, Kelsea Ankle and Brittany Tibbs also scored, with senior Heather Bourdlais recording the shutout in goal.

Later that afternoon, against Winnetonka, two early goals by Lauren Asby and Frisby helped the Oakies to a 3-1 win. Davison scored a goal in the second half to secure the win and the tournament championship.

Because of inclement weather, last week's tournament was moved from Northgate Middle School to Winnetonka High School for the first time.

As his players gathered for a team photo, Sirna said a lot of things have led to the team's fast start but that his seniors are probably the biggest reason for it.

“It's lots of little things,” he said. “We've got a lot of good leadership. I've got seven seniors that have really done a lot of hard work the last four years.”

Three Oakies sign letters of intent

Three Oak Park seniors signed letters of intent to play soccer in college.

Witney Macken, Heather Bourdlais and Brittany Tibbs all signed on March 16 in a ceremony at Oak Park High School.

Macken committed to Northwest Missouri State. Bourdlais signed with Blue River Community College and Tibbs will play for Oklahoma City University.

Sports writer Ben McClanahan can be reached at 389-6606 or bmcclanahan@npgco.com.