Louisburg — The Eudora girls soccer team’s record-breaking season came to an end in the state quarterfinals on Monday night, as it fell to No. 1 Louisburg, 2-0.

In a season during which head coach Darren Erpelding says the program expected to be in rebuild mode with quite a bit of inexperience and youth, the Cardinals’ buy-in turned into the program’s first appearance in the state quarterfinals.

“It’s tough, no matter when you lose,” Erpelding said. “And to be this close (to the state semifinals) and win the first regional title, we felt like we had a good shot here.”

Erpelding credits his team’s buy-in and effort to the senior class of 13 members, who have “bought in since day one.”

“(They) showed these younger kids how to do things the right way,” he said. “They’re going to go on to be successful, whatever they do in life. And that’s the most important thing to us coaches, and we have a lot of young players that learn from them.”

For the first 20 minutes of the match, neither team created any separation, with possession frequently switching back and forth between both sides of the field.

The final 20 minutes of the opening half, however, were largely dominated by Louisburg, which kept Eudora on its back foot often. The Cardinals’ junior goalkeeper Abby Fager stayed steady and made multiple saves to keep the match scoreless.

After the match, Erpelding complimented his starting keeper, saying she “played a great game.”

The Wildcats finally broke through with two minutes and 29 seconds left in the half, as Merritt McIntire received a centering pass from Rowan Yows and sent the ball into the back of the net. That score held up for the final 149 seconds as Louisburg controlled a 1-0 lead at the break.

“To keep it 1-0 at half, I was actually fairly pleased because they did take a lot of shots, but Abby did a great job,” Erpelding said.

Louisburg remained on the attack in the opening minutes of the second half and extended the lead just over three minutes in as Yows snuck past the Eudora defense and scored to give her team a 2-0 lead.

“She’s so difficult to stop,” Erpelding said of Yows. “When she’s on the field, she’s super dynamic and makes them much better. But I thought our back line actually did a pretty darn good job against her and against them.”

The Cardinals got their first real chance to score in the 54th minute when Jaden Brooks broke away from the Wildcats and created a corner kick opportunity, but could not get a shot on goal and failed to capitalize.

In the 66th minute, the Wildcats found themselves with a golden opportunity to extend their lead, but a nice save by Eudora’s Allison Allison kept the Wildcats’ lead at two.

Eudora’s first and only shot of the match came in the 71st minute at the top of the box, but was easily corralled by the Louisburg goalkeeper.

The Wildcats controlled possession for the final eight minutes and held on to advance to the state semifinals in Wichita later this week.

With numerous contributors returning next season, Erpelding says the experience of playing in the state quarterfinals is very beneficial in order to remain successful next season.

“Now we’re not coming in and having girls that haven’t played a lot of minutes, they played a ton of minutes,” Erpelding said. “Kambrea Kerr gets hurt nine games into the year, and with that happening, more girls had to play more minutes at different spots and things like that. Yeah, it sucked to lose Kambrea, but also in (a) silver lining, it helped us get better too, going forward for next year.”