How East HS boys soccer forged championship mettle, earned 1st state title since 1929

The stage was set.

At East High School, no program had brought home a state title since its 1929 boys basketball team.

Now, one year after falling short in a championship shootout against Webster Groves, the East High boys soccer team returned to the Missouri Class 3 state championship with a vengeance and brought glory back to the school.

Led by head coach Gerzo Guerrero, the Bears claimed the state title with a 2-0 victory over the Ladue Horton Watkins Rams, successfully capping off a 19-2 season.

A year prior, the Bears finished 20-3-1, but couldn’t get it done against the Statesmen in the 2022 championship game. For the team, the championship loss created plenty of motivation — and a reminder that while the players and coaches had made it that far, they weren’t satisfied.

“It was more about discipline, and how we carried ourselves at practice or games or in the tournaments,” senior defender Jean Byaombe said. “I feel like everybody’s mindset was different. Everybody wanted to win more this year than last year.”

Having previously been on the big stage, the Bears felt a new sense of calmness going into this year’s championship game. They knew how to prepare for it, and they were familiar with the mental and physical challenges that this day would bring.

And, as it turned out, the added experience made lifting the trophy that much sweeter for the team — especially after East hadn’t experienced such a sight in so long.

“If you haven’t won something in a long time, and you end up winning it by working hard and motivation and everybody just upholding you...” sophomore midfielder Donat Ekengya said. “When you come back with the trophy, it’s like we worked hard for this, and everyone supported you around your community. Just everyone, you know?”

One of the qualities that has made East so unique has been the diversity of both the soccer team and school as a whole. East High School is home to students with cultural backgrounds spanning 40 different languages and countries. With the wide array of cultures blended into one team, assistant coach and East High School social studies teacher Amanda Dennison finds that this mixture has helped create what matters when forming a team bond: a sense of family.

“Of course their diverse backgrounds make us very, very unique,” Dennison said. “My favorite part of the diversity of our team is our use of language because we have so many languages spoken on the field.

“I love when the boys learn each other’s languages and help each other out. We use a lot of non-verbals on the pitch, and it’s just so much fun to be a big family. We all bring different pieces from our cultures with us.”

The road wasn’t always easy, though, according to Dennison. The team struggled with team chemistry, unable to foster that true “family” aspect early on, but a vital piece from the Bears team that made their 2022 run came back for a visit after starting his collegiate soccer career. He helped steer East into the right direction.

“It was like the heavens opened and an angel came down,” Dennison joked.

That “angel” was defender Useni Mmunga, now a freshman at Seward County Community College in Liberal, Kansas. Dennison said that Mmunga dropped by practice one day earlier in the season and took matters into his own hands with a pep talk for his alma mater. The underlying theme of the talk: “We are family.”

“Since last year, we’ve gotten way closer together,” Ekengya said. “I just feel like we (previously) didn’t have that connection at all. Usually, I like a team that’s laughing and stuff like that. Last year, we did that, but on the field it didn’t show because sometimes you don’t trust a freshman, don’t trust a sophomore, don’t trust a junior with the ball.

“But this year, I feel like we got better as people, and there are some leaders on the field who helped us make the connections. You have to respect them for who they are, their background because it’s cool that where we’re at, a lot of people come from different backgrounds. And joining the soccer team as a freshman is hard. The leaders came up there saying, ‘You have to respect him, respect them,’ and that’s how it was.”

That respect helped the team grow, and also taught some of the players a lesson.

Their championship journey has taught them even more.

“You need to work hard to get where you want to go,” Byaombe said. “You need to be more disciplined, and that mindset has to be up there. You can’t just go somewhere and be up there without working hard and trying your best.”