No matter what the scoreboard said, Greg Rauch had a tough time convincing himself that it was finally going to happen.

The Bishop Carroll girls soccer head coach watched the clock tick away as his squad closed out this year’s 5A state championship match clinging on to a one-goal lead over St. James Academy.

As the Golden Eagles turned away each and every one of the Thunder’s furious efforts to tie the game up for a second time, Rauch could not let his guard down to the chance that something could still go wrong. He remained anxious even as his team earned one last stop and took a possession with less than 10 seconds to go.

“I literally thought to myself, ‘Let it get all the way to zero,’” Rauch said. “With the goal kick and five seconds, I thought, ‘Jesus wouldn’t play with me right now.’”

The final sequence would not provide divine intervention, only the Golden Eagles clearing the ball to drain away what little time remained and cue their team celebration. Bishop Carroll claimed the 2-1 victory to bring home the program’s first state championship.

“It’s 20 years we’ve been doing this thing,” Rauch said. “For the first time for a 5A or 6A, for a Wichita school to finally get it done, I literally can’t express to you what that relief feels like. I think it was almost as much a relief as it was utter joy.

“We knew that that was an amazing team, so we come out and to get it done … Man, they followed the script and those girls put it on the line.”

The script started with Bishop Carroll getting on the board first. Bishop Carroll freshman Andrea Vielmas played her role to perfection in accomplishing just that after the Golden Eagles earned a corner kick right before the midpoint of the first half.

Vielmas sent the ball arcing into the box, finding senior forward Leah Henke for a header. Henke’s leaping effort directed the ball into the back of the net, giving her team a 1-0 lead.

But only a few minutes late, St. James fired right back to even things up.
 

Thunder senior midfielder/defender Kambree Duker found herself taking possession of the ball right near the penalty mark with her back turned to the goal. Rather than try and turn upfield, Duker decided to pass the ball over her own head toward the left goal post. Senior forward Keely Niehues, surrounded by two Bishop Carroll defenders and junior goalkeeper Josie Klausmeyer, made just enough contact on a header to deflect the ball back toward the right, past the Golden Eagles players and into the net.

After a quick score for each team, the match returned to its fast-paced, low-scoring battle of the early going. It took until around after the midpoint of the second half before the 1-all stalemate would be broken.

Bishop Carroll earned a corner kick once again, putting Vielmas into another big moment at state in her first year of high school soccer.

Vielmas delivered another shot into the box, although this one did not quite find the same location as her previous assist to Henke. Instead the ball curved away from her awaiting teammates, who were also more successfully walled off by the Thunder this time around, and back toward the goal on the near side, bouncing just inside the goal area. 

But as St. James senior defender Kate Douglas attempted to kick the ball away, it ricocheted off her foot and into the net, giving Vielmas and the Golden Eagles the go-ahead goal.

Rauch said he and his team headed into this game that this was a battle of two teams that were very effective at scoring with set pieces.

“Everybody scouting warned us about (St. James’ set pieces),” Rauch said. “Look, they scored on theirs from the corner and then we had ours. We talked about those moments and the fact that that was probably going to be the key, ‘Who can convert those opportunities?’ That's all we were looking for.”

The Thunder even had another chance to tie up the match on a corner kick in the closing minutes that almost looked exactly the same as Bishop Carroll’s first goal on that same end of the field.

From the opposite corner, senior midfielder Coryn Jespersen kicked the ball directly into a sea of players from both teams. The ball seemed to be right on target for a header by junior Elle Robinson, who elevated above the crowd around her. But Klausmeyer extended her arm above the fray and in front of Robinson’s face to deflect the ball away. 

After one last opportunity for St. James ended in a goal kick, sophomore defender Madeline Weed launched the ball down the field to allow the final seconds to tick off the clock.

Bishop Carroll players took off toward the middle of the field to celebrate the victory, bringing home the first state championship for this program.
 

Henke said the key for the team was that while they respected the quality of their opponent, they also had to remain calm and confident in playing the same style that worked against the 20 opponents they went up against previously this season.

“I think we just (knew to) stay calm and play our game,” Henke said. “Play the game that we know how to play, that we've been playing all season. Never once did I doubt this group of girls.

“We finished strong. Great corner from Andrea and yeah, we took home the win.”

When the clock hit zero and the final whistle blew, Rauch immediately went from on edge to on the ground.

“I dropped to my knee, man, because it’s been a long run,” Rauch said.

For Rauch, that long run has included quite a lot of successful campaigns which until this season ended with the team falling short of its ultimate goal.

Rauch, a 1997 graduate of Bishop Carroll, took over the girls soccer program in 2011 after previously serving as an assistant coach, a role which he still maintains with the boy’s program. 

During his head coaching tenure, the Golden Eagles reached the state semifinals in 10 out of 14 seasons heading into this year. In the first nine of those trips to state, Rauch watched his team get bounced to the third-place match.

Bishop Carroll finally reached the championship match in 2023, only to have their dreams dashed again with a 2-0 loss against St. Thomas Aquinas. In that one, the Saints clinched the third of what would become four straight state championship victories, giving that program its 20th overall.

To even reach that match, Bishop Carroll had to defeat St. James Academy in a scoreless state semifinals decided by 6-5 advantage for the Golden Eagles in penalty kicks.
 

While it was St. James using that history as motivation for this rematch, it was Bishop Carroll that was using the entire history of high school girls soccer in Kansas as an inspiration to win this one.

With the Thunder already claiming four state championships on the program’s resume, St. James has helped contribute to the 30-year run of teams from the Kansas City area sweeping all of the girls soccer state championships since the sport first became KSHSAA-sanctioned during the 1993 spring season.

After Bishop Carroll won the 5A title, Washburn Rural became the first team from the West side of the bracket to win in 6A with their victory in the last of the three girls soccer championship matches hosted at Stryker Sports Complex this year.
Bishop Carroll also became just the sixth high school girls soccer team in Kansas at any level to finish a state championship season without a single loss, and just the second to deliver a truly perfect record without a loss or tie.

Olathe East was the only other program to accomplish the latter, achieving an identical record to Carroll with a 21-0-0 campaign in 2012.

“We didn't set out to be undefeated state champions,” Rauch said. “We wanted to compete for a state title, but we went out against Olathe West on the road, Day 1. I went, ‘You know what, this team looks pretty solid, man.’”

After the victory over a 6A power early in the year, Bishop Carroll’s real test came against the reigning state champs that have often been the ones standing in their way during their 10 previous trips to state.

“St. Thomas (Aquinas) scored on us in one minute, that was it for me,” Rauch said. “That was the one, because I was (wondering), ‘How are we going to react?’ 

“We scored five goals on the 20-time state champion.”

Rauch gave a lot of the credit for his team’s undefeated state championship run to the seniors leading the way: Henke, forward Darby Howard and defender/midfielder Olivia Hermann.

Henke’s final goal in the state championship match pushed her career total to 90 goals, which was already the school record. Howard ended up finishing with the third most goals all-time.
 

When one reporter started to ask a question about Henke, Rauch respectfully cut him off upon hearing the description as “arguably one of the best players in the program’s history.”

“We can take away the arguably,” Rauch said, followed by him reminiscing about her last goal before jumping back to the start of Henke's high school career. “That girl has been everything for us over the last four years. I think about me watching her start to trust in herself as much as we all did. Honestly, because of her confidence as a freshman, she was getting beat up a little bit. Eighteen-year-old girls didn’t take kindly to the little grasshopper flying around them.

“She just matured and Washburn (University) is getting themselves one heck of a deal with that young lady for that program.”

Rauch said it’s going to be hard to see Henke and the two other seniors go.

“But if you gotta go, this is a good way for them to (go), a good parting gift for them to leave with us,” Rauch said. “Twenty-one and oh, man. It feels pretty special. I don’t even care if I cry in front of adults, it doesn’t matter today.”

Henke, Howard and Hermann celebrated their storybook ending with an endless round of photos on Stryker field.

On the other hand, the young standout who scored the game-winner ended up having a much different celebration. Only having time for one quick photo op with the state championship trophy, Vielmas missed most of the team’s celebration following the awards ceremony before hurriedly making her exit from the state site.

As it turns out, Vielmas had another celebration which already had to be pushed back a bit. The young hero of the game just turned 15 years old and the state championship just so happened to fall on the same day as her quinceañera.

Luckily for the Golden Eagles, her parents and their church was able to accomodate Vielmas playing in the state championship. The team is also lucky that they are slated to have Vielmas for the next few years. She’ll help the team defend its crown next year alongside a senior class of Klausmeyer, Avery McCorry, Liza Dugan, Itzelle Lumbreras, Rachel Hawkins, Lauren Suellentrop and Elise Vermeeren, as well as a number of other underclassmen returners.