The UMSL women’s soccer team claimed its first-ever Midwest Region championship with a 2-1 victory over crosstown rival Maryville on Sunday afternoon. (Photo by Patrick Clark/Athlete’s Eye Photography)

Neither Stephen Cavallo nor any of the players on his University of Missouri–St. Louis women’s soccer team will soon forget the scene that played out Sunday afternoon with the wind whipping across Lonnie Folks Field.

The Tritons, seeded seventh in the NCAA Division II Midwest Region, had just bested crosstown rival Maryville 2-1 on its home turf to capture the regional championship, sending UMSL to the Elite Eight for the first time in 43 years.

Senior back Karley Kinzinger had the honor of accepting the championship trophy, and midfielder Taylor Martin and goalkeeper Rylee Griffith quickly joined to help her hoist it into the air. With friends and family looking on in sub-freezing temperatures, the rest of their teammates soon enveloped them, and they jumped up and down together in celebration.

“It was a pretty incredible win, obviously to make it to the Elite Eight, to do it at a local rival’s field, in St. Louis, in front of all the family and friends and fans,” said Cavallo, in his first season guiding the UMSL program. “Just a special moment.”

It was an achievement hardly anyone could have predicted, not when they were picked to finish fifth in the Great Lakes Valley Conference preseason poll or, even more recently, when they won the GLVC regular-season title but were bounced from the opening round of the league tournament.

The Tritons didn’t let the disappointment of their 1-0 loss to Missouri S&T in the GLVC Championship sully what had been a stellar season. Receiving an at-large berth into the NCAA field, they took advantage of the opportunity to reset, shutting out second-seeded McKendree and third-seeded Ashland in back-to-back matches, and they were determined to keep it going on Sunday as they took on the fourth-seeded Saints.

UMSL got on the board first in the 29th minute when Natalie Heib sent a corner kick spinning toward the near post. Natalie Scott beat goalkeeper Sophia Sulawske to the ball and jammed it into the net to give the Tritons a 1-0 lead.

That was already a precarious position for Maryville to be in against an UMSL defense that has pitched 12 shutouts this season while only allowing a total of 10 goals in its first 20 matches.

But the Tritons made things that much worse for the Saints by staying on the attack and adding a second goal less than three minutes into the second half. Josie Maddox’s cross into the box deflected to Ella Anselm, and the freshman tucked the ball into the far corner of the goal.

Maryville tried to rally, outshooting UMSL 8-2 over the final 45 minutes, and Elsa Nilson-Hurtig scored off a corner kick in the 88th minute to cut the Tritons’ lead to 2-1. But Griffith came up with a key save a minute later on a shot by Allison Estanich to keep UMSL in front.

Griffith finished with five saves while helping UMSL improve to 15-4-2.

The Tritons’ victory total is one off the school record, set in 1981 and matched in 1996. UMSL also won 15 games in 1982 when it qualified for the inaugural NCAA Women’s Soccer Championship, which featured a 12-team field populated largely by teams that today compete in NCAA Division I.

It’s not as though this season’s success came completely out of nowhere. UMSL did win last season’s GLVC Tournament to qualify for the NCAA Tournament for the fifth time in school history and first since 2016 while finishing the season with a 14-4-3 record.

UMSL graduated several key seniors from that squad, but Cavallo was quick to credit then-Coach Maddie Moon for building a talented roster capable of challenging for another postseason berth. Moon left in March to take an assistant coaching position at Division I Iowa, and Cavallo was hired as her successor in early June after serving the past two seasons as an assistant at Division I Denver.

Cavallo, whose resume also includes six seasons as the head coach at Division II Montana State University Billings, has put his mark on the UMSL program in the six months since his arrival, installing a more possession-oriented style and building from the back line. The approach has been working after a slow start. The Tritons went 1-2-1 in their first four matches but are 14-2-1 since.

“I think right now we’re playing our best soccer, which is what you want to be doing at the stage of the season,” Cavallo said. “Right now, our players are full of confidence, full of belief, and they’re playing with a lot of joy, and they’re playing with a lot of intensity. I think that showed up in the game yesterday.”

UMSL will now turn its attention to Central Region champion Washburn in an Elite Eight matchup on Saturday at 1 p.m. at World Wide Technology Soccer Park in Fenton, Missouri.

The Tritons beat the Ichabods 3-0 on Sept. 6 for their first win of the season, but Washburn has gone 13-2-5 since and won the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association regular-season title. It beat St. Cloud State 1-0 on Sunday to advance to the Elite Eight.