Many sports teams crumble under the pressure of expectations throughout a season.
Riding into this season with two straight state titles and returning many of its most talented players, Coach Ryan Radcliffe’s Bearden girls soccer program had to deal with the pressure of getting to the top of the mountain again.
On Oct. 28, the Lady Bulldogs defeated Ravenwood 4-0 in the state championship game.
Bearden reached the peak once again.
From the outside, pressure didn’t seem like it affected the team at all throughout the season. The Lady Bulldogs finished 22-0-1 this season, with their lone draw coming against Albertus Magnus (N.Y.). They netted 131 goals and allowed only 8 throughout the season.
“Obviously there was a lot of pressure on us,” Coach Radcliffe said. “In a way, we were a little naive to the pressure, though. This is a group that went into every game fully expecting to win, which can be a bad thing at times, but it’s important for a championship team to have that mentality.”
Senior leadership is something that is important for a championship team to have. The 2023 team returned 10 seniors to the team – seniors who have had to deal with the pressure of expectations and the pressure of playing at a top national program for three previous years.
“Senior leadership is so important for underclassmen,” Coach Radcliffe said. “They have a belief in this culture and they have a discipline to buy into our culture, so coming off of a national championship year, we needed them to step up in this program, and they delivered on that front.”
Senior defender Claire Radcliffe embraced the upperclassman leader role from the start of the pre-season to the final seconds of the Ravenwood match.
“The senior leader role was something that has been apparent throughout my time with Bearden soccer,” Claire Radcliffe said. “We always looked up to them and admired how hard they worked.
“When it was finally time for us to be in that role, we realized how important it was for us to lead by example. We made sure to not only push ourselves, but to also be better influences to the younger girls.”
The senior Class of 2024 knows how to handle winning. This group finished their high school careers with an overall record of 89-2-2 and have helped to cement Bearden’s place as a dynasty and national powerhouse in the high school soccer world.
“Going into the season, there was a lot of doubt on whether or not we still had the talent to win it all,” senior defender and McKendree University signee Rylie Lucas said. “It was hard throughout the year to not get content with the accomplishments we had already achieved, but we knew that we didn’t want to fail each other when we got to the biggest stage.”
While the Class of 2024 will be remembered throughout this community as a group of winners, Lucas hopes that they can be remembered more for the ways that they went about winning games.
“We loved to have fun and laugh and make jokes,” Lucas said, “but when it came to winning, every single one of us were on the same page and were willing to do anything to come away with a win.”