Blue Valley Northwest girls soccer head coach Michelle Pothoven spent the late moments of her team’s state quarterfinal matchup with Mill Valley hoping for something that most coaches don’t want to happen.

Pothoven just wanted the match to reach penalty kicks to decide the winner. A winner-take-all situation that strips away much of the skill of the game and replaces it with chance.

Not only did she get her wish, Pothoven’s Huskies squad got the job done.

Blue Valley Northwest earned the 1-0 victory over Mill Valley following a scoreless battle throughout regulation and three overtimes. The Huskies earned a 5-4 advantage in PKs to deliver the Jaguars their first loss of the season and end their bid to become repeat 6A state champions. It was also the final game for Mill Valley head coach Jason Pendleton, who announced before the school year that he would be stepping down from both Jaguars soccer programs after this year.

Pothoven said her team knew it would not be an easy match-up with the Jaguars. But the team also had a little motivation heading into this one as well.

“Mill Valley is undefeated for a reason, and they also knocked us out of the playoffs in the regional finals last year,” Pothoven said of the opponent that her team evenly matched through 120 minutes of action. “My feeling, at least by the third overtime, was really just hoping to get to a shootout.”

Pothoven said that having senior goalkeeper Nimu Karani in the net was a big reason for her having confidence in that situation, which she said still makes every coach nervous.

“But there’s a lot of confidence that you have going into a shoot with Nimu in your net,” Pothoven said.

Senior defender Emily Peterson, Nastassja Garrett, Karani, senior midfielder/defender Alex Cowdrey and senior midfielder Kate Rooney scored the penalty kicks to give the Huskies the victory and keep their season alive.

Blue Valley Northwest had beat Blue Valley North 5-1 in the regional semifinals before taking down Olathe South 2-0 to win the regional championship, the team’s first since the 2021 season when this year’s nine seniors were just freshmen.

The team has leaned on that senior leadership, particularly with Karani. Karani is the three-time goalkeeper of the year in the Eastern Kansas League. She has produced 10 shutouts this year. 

As the Huskies spent that last two years hovering around .500, Karani has been a key reason why the team has kept most matches close and even pulled off wins against some of the best teams in state.

“If you’ve watched Nimu play, she puts her money where her mouth is,” Pothoven said. “She is the hardest working girl on our field, all the time. And she is actually a better leader and better person than she is a goalie, if you can believe that. She’s incredible.”

Pothoven said it’s not just Karani that brings senior leadership though. Her other eight Class of 2024 teammates also have shown a strong work ethic and taken responsibility for this team’s development.

“We have nine seniors and we joke that we have nine extra coaches on our team,” Pothoven said. “That’s why we’ve been able to be successful this year.”

But Pothoven said it’s also Karani who takes on the role of leading that senior group and subsequently that team.

“Nimu leads that group of seniors as well,” Pothoven said. “She hypes the team up. She pumps them up. She says the tough things that need to be said. But she’s also the first person that will celebrate with her teammates when they do something great.

“When you see the work that she puts in and what she sacrifices to keep the ball out of her net, she has the right to hold everybody to that high standard, too.”

But even with Karani’s elite play in the net over the last four years, a deep playoff run requires a team to start stringing together multiple victories in a row, which is something that has eluded this program over the last couple seasons. That was also still the case early this season.

The Huskies did get on a winning streak early, but also suffered a three-game losing streak in the year as the team rolled out to a 4-4-1 record. Then something seemed to change.

The team had just lost 1-0 in overtime against St. Teresa’s Academy from KCMO. Two days later, the Huskies hosted Shawnee Mission South in a match that they won 1-0. That win kicked off a six-game win streak for the team.

Except for a 2-1 loss to another Missouri squad in Notre Dame de Sion, the Huskies won the rest of the way. Heading into the state semifinals, Blue Valley Northwest has beat its last 10 in-state opponents. During that time, the team has only allowed three goals from its opponents. 

The Huskies last loss to a Kansas opponent was the team’s 3-0 loss against fellow 6A semifinalist Blue Valley West.

“It was after that loss to Blue Valley West, a switch flipped,” Pothoven said. “There was something that happened in these girls, and I imagine it started with the seniors.”

Pothoven believes that the leadership provided by Karani and the rest of the seniors finally started to really take hold with the younger players. She could see that all the players were starting to really buy-in.

“We also had a good attitude going into that,” Pothoven said. “We knew that stretch was going to be really tough. We knew it was going to be hard.”

While the team’s three match losing streak was against three teams that are now state semifinalists, the team also knew that much of it’s EKL schedule and it’s road to state would be just as tough.

“That's when I think the girls thought it was kind of now or never,” Pothoven said.

Now the Huskies have reached the state semifinals for the first time since 2015. That year, the Huskies completed a three-peat with a 2-1 victory in the championship game over the team they face in this year’s semifinals, Washburn Rural.

In the years since, Washburn Rural has been a staple of the tournament’s final four as the Junior Blues return for the 10th consecutive appearance. 

The Junior Blues have a high scoring group led by junior forward Kate Hinck. Hinck’s 25 goals this season are the second most in the program’s history. Alongside her sophomore midfielder Allie Schroeder, junior midfielder Delaney Hill and freshman forward Erika Bovell. Those three have combined for 27 goals and 25 assists. Senior midfielder Hayley Legg has been a key distributor for that group as she leads the team with 18 assists this season. 

Junior Addyson Kaberline is the centerpiece of a defensive unit that includes a talented trio of sophomores in Peyton Merrick Dayne Shriver and Emma Wong.

When teams have made it past that group, senior goalkeeper Mackenzie Flood has been able to consistently clean up those few scoring opportunities. Flood has allowed just six goals this season as she’s delivered 15 shutouts this season in 19 games.

Washburn Rural won their postseason games by a combined 22-0 margin, including a 4-0 win over Lawrence Free State in the state quarterfinals.

Blue Valley Northwest knows the history with Washburn Rural, but they are more concerned with the current team’s experience than the results from the last postseason battle between these two programs a decade ago.

Even the success of the Junior Blues is something that Pothoven does not want her team to focus on heading into the state semifinals.

“All season, we really kind of just tried to focus on what we do,” Pothoven said, pointing out how soccer is a lot less about set plays than executing your style of play and plan of attack to the best of your ability. “We know what we can control and we have talked about that.

“Washburn has a lot more experience in the final four than we do, but that’s okay. To us, it’s just another game. It’s just one more on our path to the championship.”

Blue Valley Northwest is hoping that Karani and the Huskies defense can contain Washburn Rural’s strong offensive attack. Pothoven is also hoping that the development of her younger scoring threats will have her team ready to get the job done against the Junior Blues.

Senior midfielder Kate Rooney leads an offensive frontline that includes freshman Miriam Kante. Sophomore Mia LaBounty gives the team versatility with her ability to play both forward and defender. The trio each have six goals to lead this team, which prefers a low-scoring battle to an offensive shootout.

“If we can focus and do what we do, we’re gonna be hard to beat,” Pothoven said.

CLASS 6A
HUMMER SPORTS PARK SOCCER STADIUM IN TOPEKA
FRIDAY
Blue Valley Northwest (13-5-1) vs. Washburn Rural (16-3-0), 4 p.m.
Maize (14-4-1) vs. Blue Valley West (14-3-1), 6:30 p.m.
SATURDAY
Championship, 3 p.m.
Third-place game, 12 p.m.

CLASS 5A
SPRING HILL HS
FRIDAY