Pride runs through Kernel soccer alums in MHS girls championship run
Oct. 13—MITCHELL — Bob Lemon recalls a conversation he had with Scott Mullenmeister when Lemon assumed the Mitchell girls soccer head coaching job six years ago.
Mullenmeister told Lemon that a "special" group of girls from Mitchell was coming up the ranks in the youth competitive soccer circuit.
Fast forward to Tuesday, when a large crowd at Joe Quintal Field witnessed the Mitchell High School girls soccer team slip past Aberdeen to earn a spot in the Class AA state championship game against Harrisburg on Saturday, it's safe to say the prediction by Mullenmeister, now the head coach, has come to fruition.
It's been a historic run for the Kernels, who are 16-1-0 on the season, entering a final showdown against Harrisburg at 5 p.m. Saturday at Brandon. Mia Mullenmeister leads the state in goals scored, while the Kernels have received impressive performances from the likes of players both young and experienced.
"They're playing incredible soccer," said Lemon, who stepped down as head coach after last season and has coached high school soccer in Mitchell for more than 20 seasons. "They were sort of waiting for this time to happen and they've gotten a little bit older, a little bit faster. They understand each other, they understand their roles. People have seen this group was a special group that had the potential to do some really fun and incredible things for this community and for the school."
Regardless of the championship match, the 2023 Kernels are proof of how far girls soccer has come in Mitchell. The 2023 season is the 20th anniversary of Mitchell High School first sponsoring girls soccer, which came nearly a decade before the SDHSAA sponsored a championship. At one time, only three schools in the state had a sponsored girls soccer program.
Since soccer became an SDHSAA sanctioned sport in 2012, it's taken a while for MHS to be competitive. Prior this season, MHS was 52-84-11 and never previously won a playoff game. Now, they have 68 wins all-time, and 44 of those have come within the past five seasons.
Kayla Stangeland, a decorated 2016 Kernel graduate who played college soccer at NCAA Division II Minnesota-Crookston, recalls the team frequently losing by eight or 10 goals in regular season games early in her career.
"We were playing for the last place in the (club-level) state tournament," Stangeland said.
She also recalls a lack of interest in the sport from the community. MHS played its games at the Pepsi-Cola Soccer Complex north of town, and were oftentimes forgotten about. When the team first qualified for the club-level state tournament her seventh-grade year, "no one knew about it," Stangeland said.
From 2012 to 2018, the Kernels never won more than five matches. When Joe Quintal field added turf, the team moved back on campus, which helped with visibility. The team slowly improved, also. In 2019, Mitchell went 8-5-1, then was 8-4-2 in 2020. After dropping to 5-8-1 in 2021, it went 7-7-0 last season.
The success this season has turned everything in the Kernels' favor.
"In the past, we were excited that the volleyball team came (to the games), which was like 20 girls," said Erin Stevens, a former Kernel soccer player who graduated in 2023. "We were so excited that we had people in our student section a couple years ago. And now it's full and there are 900 people coming to watch us play. It's very big for girls soccer. Especially because in other towns, it doesn't happen there either. So it's not just Mitchell, but all over the state."
The secret of this season's success lies in the cohesiveness of the team, according to Stevens. Though most the girls have grown up playing competitive soccer outside of Mitchell, the group knows each other well and values to the fall season.
"I think a lot of it is like how far we've grown as friends, not just as teammates," Stevens said. "I think the thing that makes us our best is that we always look forward to that fall season, and we always look forward to seeing each other and playing with each other again."
It's also a group that has been battle-tested. The team reached the playoffs in the past several seasons, and last year, they nearly knocked off Pierre on the road, falling 3-2. Mitchell has learned from the losses and was equipped to make a run this season.
"They have dedicated themselves to playing and just understanding what they have to do, what their job is, because each one of them has a different job," Lemon said. "Each one of them has different strengths. And they have made it they've made full use of those strengths."
On a larger scale, the success is an indication of the growth of the sport in the city. Stangeland acknowledges that while many of the girls still leave the town to play competitive soccer, she believes Mitchell is capable of hosting more tournaments, and has seen improved rec play over the years.
"It shows what the community has invested into soccer," said Stangeland, who now teaches elementary students in Minnesota. "There's a lot of people who have invested time and effort."
And success by the team representing the school is only going to make that involvement grow.
"We are trying to develop our program," Lemon said. "And I think that seeing success at the high school level, this is the one level that probably has the most visibility ... it changes the dynamic and I think that that is makes the kids look up and say, 'That could be me someday.' And that's what I really hope, that as the Kernels go forward, there's another group that's going to come along and says 'We could be them.'"
