MONROVIA, Ind. — In order to make history, it would be implied that it happened, it’s over, move on but remember it. So, for Monrovia winning their school’s first sectional championship in boys’ soccer would hope to be the start of many championships.

Back in October, the Bulldogs made it to the IHSAA Class 2A sectional 29 championship for the third year in a row. Two years before, they lost in the championship game to end their season. This year, they walked away as winners. They defeated Edgewood 3-0 in the first round, then Brown County 2-0 in the semi-final game and knocking out West Vigo 2-1 for the final. To make the deal even sweeter, it was on their home pitch.

West Vigo, a team that went 12-4-2 in the regular season and took first place in the Western Indiana Conference, faced their familiar foe sitting at 6-14 on the season and 1-5 in the Indiana Crossroads Conference. But as most people know, your record starts back at 0-0 come tournament time.

“That’s (West Vigo) a team that we always seem to play really, really close,” five-year coach for Monrovia, Derek Davis, said. “We played them in the prior sectionals and they beat us in overtime by one. We knew it was going to be a close game. We just stopped what they were doing on offense and pushed the ball up. It really frustrated them and we really dominated possession of the game.”

While the Bulldogs were prepared for the game, so was West Vigo. Monrovia made changes at halftime that really changed the outcome of the game.

“We were a lot more offensive minded and tried to get the ball to having runners coming from the outside and near their goal and the 18 box,” Davis said. “That seemed to pay rather good dividends and got a lot of shots off and we probably should’ve had a couple more goals. We definitely had more possessions than they did.”

The two goals were scored by Malychi Brown and Kadyn Williams while the defensive stance was led by goalkeeper Riley Corona.

“He (Corona) had two saves in the last 10 seconds of the game where we were only up one and he made two saves in four seconds time,” Davis said. “He’s only a sophomore. We had a lot of injuries and other things happened to us this year and towards the end of the season that I really had to flip around our positioning just to get the most talent on the field. I took a senior out of goal and had to move him to play midfield and replaced him with that sophomore and had to move another senior back to defense to fill another gap. It ended up working out well for us.”

Davis said the win was a team effort but wanted to point out exceptional play from captains and seniors.

“One of our captains, Alex Willett, he plays center midfield for us. He really did great,” Davis said. “I don’t think he came off for one minute in the championship game. He really dominated the possession and won possessions for us and really got our offense started every time. He had one of the key assists for the winning goal also.

“Senior Luke Johnson is a defender, and he played extremely tough,” Davis continued. “He actually had to make a couple saves himself when my goalie had fell down and they ripped a shot off and he threw his body out to block the shot. He played a wonderful game. Sam Cox, he is another one of my captains and he really dominated the left side the entire game. The other team really couldn’t do much with him over there.”

What might be more impressive than the win are the events that led up to the win – the small things that prepared the Bulldogs for that very night. Starting with Monrovia’s tough regular season schedule – Monrovia played West Vigo a few weeks prior and lost 5-3. They also played schools two to three times bigger than them like Martinsville (0-8 score) and Speedway (0-7 score) and found themselves in tough shutouts.

“Our schedule is extremely hard. It’s a lot harder than anybody else in our sectional by far,” Davis said. “The teams we are playing go to the state finals every year, so we have a very hefty schedule ahead of us but it gets us ready for postseason when we play more evenly-based opponents and we seem to do very well. I don’t mind the schedule throughout the year as we always end up showing up for sectionals.”

Maybe it was the passion that Davis brought to the program five years ago. According to Davis, when he got here, Monrovia didn’t have a lot of excitement about soccer. They fell shadow to the football program who recently made it to the state finals and took most of the athletes from the school for the fall season. Davis said the soccer program struggled to even score goals or compete in very many games and by the time postseason came around, the team was already checked out before the first game. They realized history would probably repeat itself and that Monrovia would likely end its season early.

“They had one postseason win in school history in the late 90s before I got there,” Davis said. “Basically, all the guys out there were just prepared for the season to be over at that point. Last year marked the third time that we made it to the sectional championship. We lost the two prior games, but we did win it this year to make it the first sectional championship for the school. After getting there three times, those seniors, I pressed on that before the championship game and said ‘Guys that’s not normal. We need to take advantage of this. Not many kids get this opportunity.’”

As far as taking that next step and playing soccer in college, Davis said he hasn’t had anybody take advantage of college interest. Most of his athletes play in other sports or have other ideas for their future outside of soccer he said.

“I did have one kid that had heavy interest from Penn State and that would’ve been the first DI offer that I’m aware of for the school in boys’ soccer,” Davis said. “I didn’t have the valedictorian last year, but I’ve had three valedictorians on the team in my five years here. We have some very high GPAs on the team. We’ve had a few kids that got academic honors on the team. We’ve never lost anybody due to grades in five years. I definitely stress getting their grades and do make sure they know what’s going on in the classroom and make themselves eligible and do the best they can.”

As with any sport, skill levels start at an early age. Local programs start soccer leagues as soon as kids get out of diapers and continue in various ways. Many athletes come into the Monrovia soccer program having played the game their whole life while others are just trying it out for the first time.

Right now, the middle school soccer program at Monrovia is nonexistent, but Davis hopes to change that.

“We are pretty limited on space,” he said. “I do think in the next couple years though, since we’ve sparked some interest out here, the school got approved to get some land and that is on the docket to get another field or two so we can get a middle school team going.”

Davis has also helped out with the little league soccer program in Monrovia. He ran coaches’ clinics, spoke with referees, handed out practice plans for reference and even coached a team of his own with his daughter on the team.

“That’s where my players come from,” Davis said. “I at least try to get them on the same page early on to see what I’m doing at the high school level. That helps a ton.”

Will history repeat itself? We shall see.

2020 Roster

# First Name Last Name Grade Position.
1 Jeffrey Brown 12 GK
2 Luke Johnson 12 D
3 Sam Cox 12 M
5 Emmanuel Akanle 11 M
7 Brock Johnson 12 F
8 Kadyn Williams 12 M
9 Westley Merrill 9 M
10 Parker Lee 10 M
10 Maxwell Gillie 10 M
12 Nolan Courtney 9 M
13 Marcus Stevenson 11 D
14 Collin Wise 10 M
15 Devon Weston 11 D
16 Hunter Burnham 9 M
17 Malychi Brown 10 M
18 Daniel Jones 9 D
20 Alex Willett 12 M
21 Tyler Corona 12 D
22 Matthew Gillie 10 M
23 Tyler Maude 12 M
24 Colin Lee 11 M
26 Zeke Philpott 10 D
27 Riley Corona 10 GK
28 Alex Brown 9 D
30 Marshal Hobbs 10 M

Head Coach: Derek Davis
Asst. Coach: Bryce Johnson
Athletic Trainer Brandy Crum

Principal: Mike Springer
Superintendent Dr. Kirk Freeman
Athletic Director: Todd Evers
Asst. Athletic Director: Todd Fakes
Asst. Athletic Director: Kyle Swafford

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