Girls soccer: Toth’s game-winner sends Maize back to Titan Classic finals

Having netted 50 goals last season, Maize’s Makayla Toth is used to finishing her chances.

But for the first 70 minutes of Thursday’s semifinal in the Titan Classic against Kapaun Mount Carmel, Toth was held in check despite four chances in the box. It was frustrating, to say the least, for the Central Missouri recruit.

That frustration was released in the 74th minute, as Toth lost a defender by turning her inside-out, then touched around the diving keeper and finished the game-winner to send Maize back to the Titan Classic championship game via a 2-1 victory over Kapaun. Maize will play Bishop Carroll for the title on Saturday at 2 p.m., while Kapaun will meet Derby for third place.

“I didn’t have the best game on finishing,” said Toth, who had the assist on Maize’s first goal. “I was hoping once I got around (the defender), I could touch around the keeper a little more and get it in and that’s exactly what I did. It feels amazing.”

That’s the kind of play Maize coach Jay Holmes is used to seeing from Toth.

“Great, great finish,” Holmes said. “She just has that tenacity to go at those backs. She did a great job of cutting her up and putting the ball in the back of the net.”

Maize scored the game’s first goal in the 20th minute when Rachel Marshall intercepted a pass at midfield to create a counter for Maize. Marshall passed ahead to Toth, who dribbled into the box and Marshall’s streaking run forced Kapaun’s back line out of shape, allowing an opening for Liz Palmer.

A simple pass across the box from Toth gave Palmer the time and space she needed, as the senior midfielder calmly slotted the shot away for the 1-0 lead.

But not even two minutes later, Kapaun equalized on a counter of its own when freshman striker Ava Ayala let loose a rip off her right foot from just inside the box with a defender near that beat the keeper.

“Honestly, that’s the best shot I’ve seen her take up until this point,” Kapaun coach Anthony Cantele said. “I hadn’t really seen that from her before she did that. Now I know she has it in her.”

The goal injected confidence into Kapaun, which carried it through the rest of the half as it played evenly with Maize in the first half. But as the game wore on, Maize began to possess more and create more opportunities.

Maize was by far the more dangerous team in the second 40 minutes, but it didn’t find the final touch until Toth provided the game-winner.

“This game showed me this team has a lot of heart,” Holmes said. “I think they’re trying to establish their own identity after last year’s team and I think we’re doing that. We’re doing a good job of keeping the ball in front of us and we’re starting to figure things out in the offensive third.”

Lubbers’ back-heel assist wows coaches — It didn’t win the game for Carroll, but freshman Taryn Lubbers’ assist to Lauren Kerr was all anyone was talking about after Carroll’s 2-0 victory over Derby.

Near the end of the game, Lubbers received a pass just inside the box with her back to goal. The freshman noticed striker Lauren Kerr making a diagonal run and back-heeled a through ball into space that sent Kerr through to a 1-on-1 with the goalie that the senior easily converted.

“I’ve seen some fantastic players, for sure, but as far as ball skills and composure on the ball, I don’t know if I’ve seen one start off as high as Taryn,” Carroll coach Greg Rauch said. “Every practice she makes the very difficult look effortless.”

“That was a moment of pure brilliance by that freshman,” Derby coach Paul Burke said of Lubbers. “To back-heel a through ball, you don’t see that from a ton of girls. That’s probably going to fool 90 percent of teams in the state.”

The play highlighted a thorough performance by Carroll, although Derby was playing without its one-woman counter in senior forward Jordan Eickelman, who was sitting out the match after suffering a leg injury in Tuesday’s win over Northwest.

Carroll controlled most of the possession and created most of the chances, but failed to produce many clear-cut chances outside of Lubbers’ creativity late in the game. Carroll’s first goal came in the 20th minute when Hanleigh Allen hustled to apply defensive pressure on Derby’s back line and picked the ball off a defender in the final third and turned it into a goal.

It was Allen’s 10th goal in Carroll’s 3-0 start to the season.

“I just saw the ball go back and I was like, ‘Hey, I’ve got to go get it no matter what,’” Allen said. “Rauch was telling us before the game that this will be a game where you have to go for things you usually wouldn’t go for. So that’s all I was thinking about that whole game was trying to make something happen.”

Derby had promising stretches of play, but lacked the proven threat without Eickelman to present much of a threat to a Carroll back line manned by Maguire Sullivan. At one point Derby had seven freshmen on the field with all five attacking players freshmen.

Burke did find some success with moving Sydney Nilles up in the field to a target forward role, as the freshman showed signs of being able to hold up play and pick out runners down the lines. That is a promising development when Eickelman returns from injury.

“I thought Sydney did a great job and she just does a great job with her body and how she positions herself,” Burke said. “We wanted to cut down on her running since she’s coming off basketball season and she did an amazing job holding the ball up and looking for runs. But she also had two freshmen running off of her, so the chemistry isn’t there yet. But we’re getting there.”

For Carroll, it will now look for redemption after losing 6-1 to Maize in the Titan Classic championship last spring. The rematch will happen on Saturday.

“There is a little bit of a redemption factor for us,” Rauch said. “We had a poor showing last year and we would really like to give Maize a competitive game this time around.”

This story was originally published March 31, 2017 at 11:06 AM with the headline "Girls soccer: Toth’s game-winner sends Maize back to Titan Classic finals."