Missouri Military Academy soccer feels tuned up for districts next week.

MMA vs Sunnydale Photo Gallery

The reason why is because the Class 1 No. 5 Colonels hosted a tough opponent they had never beaten before on Tuesday night in Mexico and defeated Sunnydale Adventist Academy, out of Centralia, 2-1 to close the regular season. In a makeup game from Sept. 30, MMA extended its winning streak to five games after holding the Spartans without a goal until the final seconds.

Since MMA (13-4) wants to go a step further than last year and win its first district championship since 2018, head coach Elliot Goodwin said facing Sunnydale in the game before districts was good preparation for the postseason. Sunnydale (9-3) is a boarding school that plays a mix of boarding schools and MSHSAA teams in its schedule and has done well this season, defeating big schools like Southern Boone 5-1, Battle 7-1 and Father Tolton 2-1 and also MMA 3-1.

“They're a good team,” Goodwin said. “They’ve got athletes, and they’ve got guys with skill and technique. It was perfect opposition to play against. If they were in MSHSAA or in our class, I would have eyes on them if they were in our district and we were playing them in a knockout game. That’s a tough game.”

Throughout the whole game, Colonels and Spartans collided various times to leave players momentarily down on the field. Fighting for possession was a struggle and scoring goals was even more difficult, but MMA struck twice in the first half after not scoring more than once in its previous three meetings with Sunnydale. 

Fernando Puebla was fouled and converted on a penalty kick in the 20th minute and then Alexander McBride scored on a breakaway down the right sideline off an assist by Puebla. 

“(Puebla) has stepped up all year when we’ve needed a goal,” Goodwin said. “He’s going to be key going forward. When the chances come, we want to take them, and he’s a guy that can do that.”

Shots were about even with Sunnydale holding a slight advantage at 19-18, and Gihana Favour Nziza recorded 12 saves for MMA. Goodwin said his defense earned a 10 out of 10 rating on Tuesday and has been at level during the Colonels’ winning streak. MMA outscored opponents 24-2 in its final five regular season games, earning a 2-1 victory at Class 4 Battle, defeating those Spartans for the first time since 2018. 

“We’ve changed the formation slightly just to be more compact and give us a little more strength in numbers, which has been really effective,” Goodwin said. “Avin Hernandez has been superb as a leader constructing the back line, making sure things are organized for us. That’s the way a captain or leader should handle the team. He’s stepped up massively.”

Sunnydale upped its attack in the second half, sending away 12 shots until one finally broke past Nziza with 27.3 seconds remaining. The Spartans had two other shots bounce off the post but found the large frame of Nziza or the bodies of defenders like Hernandez, Alvaro Gonzalez or Eric Shellabarger most of the game.

The 6-foot-7 kid from Rwanda is in his first season as the varsity goalkeeper but has remained a wall all season. Nziza has allowed an average of 1.3 goals against him and has been there for four shutouts this season that was seconds away from being five. He said he looked up to the previous goalkeeper Joseph Roach and has felt ready for every game this year.

“When I come to practice, I take every shot like it’s a game situation or it’s a game shot,” Nziza said. “I don’t say, ‘That’s not going to be in a game situation.’ No, I have to go for every ball I can. If I don’t, next time I have to try harder and get faster.”

Nziza said Sunnydale is the type of opponent that keeps the pressure on so he was tired after the battle. He said he is glad he was able to make one particular shot in the second half that forced him to dive to his left side and prevent one from breaking just past the right post.

“I had a good save back there,” Nziza said. “I didn’t think I was going to make it, but I still made it and surprised myself. That was my weak side so that’s why I was surprised.”

MMA has the No. 1 seed in the Class 1 District 3 tournament to be played in Brentwood starting next week. The Colonels have a first-round bye and will play either STEAM Academy (3-15) or Canton (1-15) at 4 p.m. Nov. 6.

The Colonels haven’t had a No. 1 seed in districts since 2015, which was another season they won a district championship. They have at least that goal in mind, but Nziza would like the program to go for a championship it hasn’t had a shot at since 1992.

“I really hope we can win state,” Nziza said. “I want to go to state.”

Goodwin isn’t even shying away from the word “great” to describe his team. MMA has seen and defeated Canton 8-1 and Elsberry with Silex 4-2 this season and will be “ecstatic” if the Colonels can make it past districts this season after losing a district title 4-0 to Father Tolton last season. 

“A great team influences themselves,” Goodwin said. “When I have to control them from the side, that’s a good team. When you can do it internally and when they could do it on the field, or when the team controls things themselves, that’s a great team. Games like this, that will test you if you are a good team or you’re a great team. That’s a great team performance.”