Panthers ready to challenge for more girls soccer titles

Photo courtesy of Pride of the Panthers

By JEREMY SCHNEIDER

MIRROR SPORTS

While winning back-to-back district championships, the Maumee girls soccer team have lost key talent off the roster after each season.

It’s the same this year, as the Panthers will look to replace four seniors who each made a big impact. Just like last year, though, head coach Jeremiah McNutt isn’t looking at an empty cupboard.

Maumee returns five of its top 10 goal scorers from last year’s 14-7 team. Evelyn Boyett, Charley Bischoff and Teagan Kennedy combined to score 15 goals with nine assists last year. 

Of the 160 points the Panthers scored last year, 43 percent return for this season. Senior Ainsley Heckman led the team with eight assists while Shannon Tolbert and Kennedy had six each.

“A lot of those top girls that we have have been playing for two years, some of them three years on varsity with a big key role, so it’s bringing in those girls who had a little less time, just bring them along,” McNutt said. “At the beginning of the year, (the veterans) are going to have to carry a little bit more to bring the other players along.”

Also back is goalkeeper Lauren Liwo after a freshman season that saw her play in all 21 games with a 1.52 goals against average and 4.2 saves per game.

Maumee went 5-1 in its first season in the Northern Buckeye Conference, tying for the conference title with Oak Harbor and Eastwood. It was the first conference title in 35 seasons of Panthers girls soccer.

So Maumee will enter this year with a new target on its back — defending league champs. McNutt said his players have been handling the pressure well, albeit with a few reminders from him.

“Sometimes I have to give them a reminder that it's not going to be as easy because you never know what everyone is going to be coming at you with,” McNutt said. “You just have to be ready for everything.”

While the NBC shaped up to be a three-team race for the title, the Panthers were already embroiled in a more important and personal rivalry — with the Maumee boys soccer team.

This year, the girls team will go for its third straight district title while the boys squad will be going for its second straight district title.

Three straight district soccer titles haven’t been accomplished at Maumee in quite a while, and in fact, the boys program holds that record. McNutt and his team are focused on rewriting that page in the record books this year.

“It gives us a good healthy rival,” McNutt said. “They’re being chased with a target on their back by their own school. We are going to try to match the boys record this year with three district (titles).

“This being our second going for our third, I think we’re still the top dogs. They’ve got to chase us now. That’s the rivalry, at least for me.”