FORT WAYNE — “Don’t let her shoot!”
Normally, coaches wouldn’t want their players to listen to what fans are shouting. But perhaps the girls in maroon should have listened as immediately after the shout, the ball flew off of Avery Jarrells’ foot and into the goal.
And while the freshman whom one fan avidly didn’t want to shoot the ball found the net a second time, the first was all that was needed, as Ruth Sherck and the defense kept the opposing Eagles off the board.
And now the Eagles from Muncie have reached uncharted territory.
The Delta High School girls soccer team claimed its second postseason trophy on Saturday by beating the Culver Academies Eagles 2-0 in the IHSAA Class 2A Regional 30 final hosted by Concordia Lutheran.
The victory is the second regional title in school history; the last came in 2002 when the regional was only one game, while the semi-state had two matches. Delta will move on to face No. 1 Mishawaka Marian (13-4-2) in the semi-state match at Kokomo on Oct. 25.
“It’s awesome,” said DHS coach Mason Turner. “This program has been dry of a sectional and a regional win in a while, so to be able to bring those both home in one season is just awesome. So really excited and proud of this group and how far we’ve come along the season.”
Unlike the regional semifinal, Delta (19-1) got on the board early.
Jordan Bunch had worked the ball up the left side of the field before finding Avery Jarrells at the left edge of the box. The DHS freshman worked to her right as a trio of Culver defenders trailed her.
Right as a Culver Academies fan shouted a warning to not let the Eagles’ leading scorer shoot, she sent the ball into the lower left corner for the goal as the clock read 33 minutes, 55 seconds.
“My initial thought going into the game was just, ‘You have to stay ready, on your toes and anything that you take out there is going to be left on the field, so just give it your all,’” Avery Jarrells said. “That’s what I did. I just wanted to score and place my balls better because last game, my shots were so bad. This game, I just wanted to improve on that.”
The Delta offense slowed down for the rest of the first half, as it played against the wind, and the Eagles in maroon looked to even the score. DHS found the net for a second time at 13:20 in the second half, approximately six minutes after a 20-minute delay for an injury to Culver’s Killarney Eyer.
On the second goal, Aubree Jarrells threw the ball in after a poor goal kick by Meaghan Rafferty went directly out of bounds. Grace Jarrells had the ball in the middle of the field before pushing it up to her cousin Avery Jarrells, who striped it into the left side of the net from 22 yards out.
“They’re just amazing at feeding me balls,” Avery Jarrells said of Bunch and Grace Jarrells. “(They) even like coach me when I do bad. I know there’s a lot of times I should play the ball back and after I shoot it and I know I should have played it back to them, they’ll always reassure me with like, ‘Next one,’ and ‘You’ve got it.’”
While the Eagles in white handled business on the offensive end, Sherck and a defensive line that largely consisted of Aubree Jarrells, Adoree Smith and Brianna Jones with Grier Backus as a defensive midfielder, acted as the anchor in the victory.
Despite playing against the wind the first half, the group kept Culver (9-4-4) from getting too close to the goal. The job the backline did also allowed Sherck to come out of the goal on multiple occasions to make stops and end drives early before Culver’s strikers could reach the ball.
The effort didn’t change in the second half, as the Eagles secured the shutout victory.
DHS has now played 320 minutes of postseason soccer without giving up a single score.
“As this season has gone on, we’ve started to read each other’s minds almost,” said Sherck. “It’s just the communication and even being able to do things without having to communicate. We’re reading each other, learning how to communicate and move together as a team. … It’s just a beautiful thing to see.”
Next up for the Eagles will be the top-ranked Mishawaka Marian (13-4-2), which beat No. 5 Bellmont 4-1 in the regional final and finished as the state runner-up to Lawrenceburg in 2024 after taking the game to penalty kicks.
Delta will enter the final four for the first time in program history looking to continue playing its style without putting too much pressure on itself.
“It’s just coming out and playing our game,” said Turner. “We know Mishawaka was state runners-up last year, so they’ve been here and had that experience.
“We’re going into uncharted territory, so we have to make sure we don’t come out and let those nerves get to us in that next game. We just need to settle down and play our game and see where we go.”