Why Wichita struggles winning boys soccer state titles and who could change that
The Wichita area has won 11 boys soccer state championships in the sport’s 33-year history in Kansas. Kansas City area schools have won as many in the past four years.
When Bobby Bribiesca, former Wichita Northwest soccer coach, retired after 41 years of service, Rose Hill’s Jerry Treat became the only active coach in the area to have multiple state titles on his resume. There is one candidate who stands out to join him.
Maize South, under the direction of coach Rey Ramirez, has gone to back-to-back Class 5A state championship games. The Mavericks lost both times, by a combined score of 12-1. But there is at least hope that 2020 holds the key to the Wichita area’s return to the top of Kansas high school soccer.
“Most of the time, when you’re in the final, you’ll be back again,” Bribiesca said. “For some reason, there is a formula there. Right now, Maize South is stacked with seniors with experience, so I’d bet on them to do it next.”
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The Wichita area hasn’t seen a boys soccer state championship team since Rose Hill won back-to-back Class 4-1A titles in 2014-15. No team has won a 5A or 6A title since Bribiesca’s undefeated Northwest team in 2011. Before that, you’d have go back to Goddard in 2002.
So why is it so hard for Kansas’ biggest city to win soccer’s biggest prize?
“The club soccer scene in the Kansas City area is second to none,” Ramirez said. “We’re talking in comparison across the country. They’re among the best if not the best when it comes to the size of their clubs, the amount of clubs at each and every single age group.
“Right now, the only kids that get that top-notch, state championship quality competition are the kids that can afford to be on club teams and travel to Kansas City every week. Right now in Wichita, we are competing with only half of our talent pool because the other half can’t afford to get that kind of preparation and training they need.”
Depth has been the biggest reason for failure in the Wichita area. Although Wichita is the biggest city in Kansas, the talent pool in Kansas City is much wider. With Sporting Kansas City down the road and its academy scooping up some of the best players in the area, players develop much quicker and easier, Bribiesca said.
He said a Kansas City team can substitute all 11 players on the pitch at one time and not see too big of a dip in production or fluency of play. A Wichita team might take off three players and look like a completely different team, Bribiesca said.
And that gets worse the farther you get from Kansas City.
Ramirez grew up as the son of immigrant parents from Mexico who settled in Garden City. Out west, the disparity of soccer resources is even greater, he said. If players wanted to find stronger competition, they had two options of equal struggle: Drive to Wichita or Kansas City, or play in the adult league.
Ramirez said with many athletes coming from families working hard just to get by, making a trip across the state every week sometimes isn’t feasible. In 2016, Dodge City won the Class 6A state title; Ramirez said what they did was incredible given the circumstances.
“At the age of 14, I was getting tackled by men that were my dad’s age, and that’s not right,” he said. “You’ll see it in those kids’ play styles. They don’t come off the field. They don’t get hurt very often in a high school game.”
The western half of Kansas has it much worse than the Wichita area powerhouses like Maize South, but if the Mavericks were to pull off a title in 2020, it would be considered nothing short of an upset as well.
That said, Maize South will have its strongest, deepest, complete team in school history this season, Ramirez said. For a Wichita area team, that has to be the case if a state championship is on the cards, Bribiesca said.
Senior striker Raul Gerhardus is coming off of an All-Metro selection in 2019. He scored 33 goals, and by the end of his junior season, he was already the school’s all-time leading scorer.
The same could be said about senior winger Landon Eskridge and his assists tally. He was on the cusp of an All-Metro bid last year but just missed. He is almost a lock in 2020, coming off of a 20-goal, 16-assist season.
Senior midfielder Adam Dyer has been a staple in the Maize South lineup since his sophomore season. His creativity on the ball replicates what the Mavericks had in 2018 with All-Metro selection Andrew Bliss, and Dyer’s shot is even harder to stop.
Throw in an outstanding supporting cast in junior defender Oliver Jaberg, freshman midfielder Vitor Geromel, senior defender Brayden Parker and so many others, and its no question why Bribiesca tabbed the Mavericks as the favorite to follow what his Northwest teams did.
Maize South is off to a 6-0 start this season. Tuesday, the Mavericks beat a much-improved Goddard team 10-0. Saturday, they beat Salina South 9-2 to win their home tournament for the fourth straight year. And Sept. 1, they started the season with a 2-1 overtime win against Bishop Carroll, traditionally one of the best teams in the area.
The Mavericks have outscored opponents 35-7 through six games, winning by an average of more than 4.6 goals a game. Bribiesca said that is the final quality of a state championship team in the Wichita area.
“You cannot be satisfied walking away with a 1-0 win because teams from the East will beat the same team 10-0,” he said. “Sometimes people don’t understand that, but I have to get better for the next game. If I take it easy, that’s not going to get you to the final four. You have to compete from the first minute through the 80th.”
Last year, Maize South beat only five opponents by five goals or more. The Mavs have done it twice in the past four days. Bribiesca said it isn’t about running the score up. It’s about instilling a ruthless mindset.
In the Wichita area, it’s possible to play against teams that don’t have any year-round soccer players. With weakened competition, it gets easy to take the foot off of the gas pedal, Bribiesca said.
“There are some extra hurdles that we have to get through and jump over,” Ramirez said. “But at the same time, you ultimately have the perform in order to get ahead. We talk a lot about life skills in our soccer programs, and we don’t want our boys to feel like they can’t achieve something. We want to teach them that no matter what the obstacles are, you can get ahead.
“I think this year, with our Maize South soccer boys, we definitely have accomplished the mental side, so we are ready to go achieve what we have in the past and a little bit more.”
This story was originally published September 16, 2020 at 3:41 PM.