More to prove: Saxony Lutheran girls' soccer ready to write more history this spring

JACKSON — There are certain programs where returning a three-time All-State forward, a future college soccer player and a group of other talented, if not less experienced, athletes would call for a pre-season parade.

But this being Saxony Lutheran, where state Final Four appearances and district gold medals have become the standard, such talent retention is only the beginning.

Head coach Chris Crawford, who has guided the Crusaders to two consecutive third-place finishes at the Class 1 state tournament, still wants to tamp down some of the preseason hype following the loss of eight key seniors.

“We're trying to temper expectations because we graduated quite a bit,” Crawford said. “Even though a lot of these girls have Final Four experience and they've played, some of them haven't been starters, they haven't been the one. This year, they're going to have to step up and be that.”

And he stands true. A team doesn’t lose major pieces, such as 2024 Class 1 Co-Defensive Player of the Year Maci Hollis, second-team All-State selections Annie Adams and Clara Brune or star goalkeeper Grace Ozark, and not experience at least some sort of regression.

However, the star power is still there.

Start with senior Camille Richey — three times an All-State selection, twice named the Class 1 Region 1 Player of the Year, and arguably the most accomplished player in program history outside of three-time Class 1 Player of the Year Emma Brune (2017-20). Richey has led the Crusaders in scoring in back-to-back seasons after netting a team-high 14 goals in 2024.

Crawford said the star midfielder's poise is what impresses him the most.

“She's calm on the ball, she's calm during games,” Crawford said. “She's a natural leader. We know if we need something done, even if it's playing defense or, heck, I could probably put her in goal if I had to, and she would compete and know what to do. And so, her competitive nature really makes her one of the better players in the area.”

Fellow senior forward Faith Dreyer will also anchor the front line. A sharp competitor who Crawford said “is at the field on Sundays and Saturdays when nobody else is there working,” Dreyer tallied 12 goals and five assists in a breakout junior campaign last spring. Her 29 points last season are the most among returning starters.

“We've been doing a lot of good things so far this preseason,” said Dreyer, who signed her national letter of intent to Belhaven University on Wednesday, March 19. “We've been working hard and I think this year we can make it pretty far. It might be a little tougher because we're up a class, but I think we'll be able to. If we stick together, I think we'll be able to make it there again.”

Where Saxony mostly needs to fill in the gaps is on the defensive side, but Crawford and the coaching staff are confident that the unit will be in good shape down the road.

Three seniors — Isabel Brown, Aleigh Miller and Adalina Deckerd — have all played meaningful varsity minutes in recent years and are poised to step into bigger roles. Throw junior midfielder Sophie Debrower into the mix and the backline has quality depth to work with.

“We've always been more of a defensive program anyway, so we've been working on that,” Crawford said. “We lost some big-time players, but we have people that have had the experience. Now, we just need to step up.”

Between the posts, senior Tegan Barnett will take over the goalie position after recording 16 saves as a junior.

“She's been a goalie pretty much her whole life,” Crawford said. “We had Grace and, fortunately and unfortunately, Tegan had to play behind her for two years because Grace was just in that spot. And Tegan pushed her a lot. So, I think she's ready to take over and kind of put her stamp on the program.”

But as talented as the Crusaders are, a lot of their success is reliant upon these younger, less experienced players rising to the occasion.

“In high school soccer, if you outwork teams a lot of times, good things are going to happen,” Crawford said. “We try to impress that upon our kids, especially the younger ones that have had a little bit of experience but haven't been on that varsity stage from the get-go. They're going to have to realize that you can't just come in and give us five minutes now. We need 80 minutes from you every night, and that's going to be the hard thing for us.”

Saxony’s journey begins at 5 p.m. Friday, March 21, when the Crusaders square off against Farmington.

Even though the program bumps up to Class 2 this season, Saxony’s depth and talent should allow it to maintain the standard and make another state tournament run.

“The standard kind of got set when Garrett (Fritsche) and I were here in 2015 when we won a state championship,” Crawford said. “I said last year that ‘We don't lose on the second day, no matter what’. So, that's kind of our standard, and we work to that every year. You're not always going to make the Final Four, and that doesn't mean we had a bad season or an unsuccessful season, but that's what we're always working towards, because we know we can do it. We've done it consistently here, our players buy into that, and they work like they're trying to win a state championship … that's the culture we’ve built here.”