Minot High’s Maicee Burke moves the ball up field during the 2023 season.

Local stores might want to purchase more toilet paper at the end of May.

Each year, following the state soccer tournament, members of the Minot High girls’ soccer team have a tradition, win or lose, where they go and teepee each of their coaches’ houses.

“It’s just a fun little last hurrah type of deal,” said Bria Lewis, one of four seniors on the team. “Sometimes we get caught and then we have to explain ourselves. They [the coaches] don’t like it, but they know it’s coming.”

Bonding rituals like that become all the more valuable given the expectations surrounding this year’s team.

The Majettes are the three-time defending state champions. No high school girls team in North Dakota has won four in a row. Raising the pressure even more is the fact that the state tournament is being played on Minot High’s home field at Duane Carlson Stadium.

Oh, and the program hasn’t lost a game since before the pandemic; the last loss coming to Fargo Shanley in the 2019 state title game.

Listen to the team long enough, and one might ask himself, “What pressure?”

“I think we’re ready for it,” said Lewis. “We just kind of look at it as some extra fun. It’s motivation to us. Honestly, it’s not much pressure.”

It helps when much of last year’s squad returns including the reigning North Dakota High School Girls’ Soccer Player of the Year in Emerson Perrin, who has signed to play collegiately at North Dakota State University.

Joining Lewis and Perrin are fellow seniors Maicee Burke and Alexander Schonauer.

“They’ve all been tremendous players since their freshman year, and some have got some minutes as junior high kids, so they are kids that have been around the program five, six years,” said Minot High girls’ soccer head coach Matt Pfau. “It definitely helps them know the expectations. They know what the end goal is.It pushes all the younger kids to try and make practice as hard as they can every single day, competing against each other.”

That said, Pfau and his coaching staff are trying to avoid talking about chasing history.

“You have to take it one day at a time, because you never know what’s going to happen with health and all that kind of stuff,” said Pfau. “But I think the bigger thing kids are looking at is having the state tournament in Minot for like 20 years or around there. I think that’s an exciting thing for our girls to keep motivated and push, push, push to get to play in a state tournament on their home field and get that experience that a lot of kids don’t get to do.”

According to Pfau, the source of the team’s success is simple: the girls just love to play soccer and they play year round.

“It makes my job a heck of a lot easier when I come in for two and a half months and get to work with them,” said Pfau. “We don’t have to do as much skill development work because they’ve done that the whole offseason, and that we can just get to the tactical stuff of playing 11-on-11 on a big field.”

The team is acutely aware of the shoulders this team stands on, with such greats as Lainey Samberg, Zoe Weishaar and Malian Burke having played for the Majettes, among others.

“There’s been a ton of good players that we’ve just got to rely on year after year after year, and it just keeps feeding,” said Pfau. “I think that the younger girls want to be a part of that. And hopefully we have fourth and fifth graders watching these girls that want to continue to keep the tradition alive.”

That consistency in talent and work ethic is something Perrin has both witnessed and been a part of during her career, and according to her, it is one of the most exciting evolutions she has seen in the program.

“I think we’ve just grown in the sense that there’s more elite players,” said Perrin. “We’ve always had a very elite team from my seventh-grade year to now, and I think that makes everyone want to work harder because they want a spot, they want to be part of this team.”

As a team captain, Perrin encourages younger players to play with a confidence that allows one to shrug off mistakes.

“Confidence means a lot, especially if you’re a younger player,” said Perrin. “Don’t worry about the little mistakes because we all make mistakes. And if you don’t make a mistake, you’re not actually playing soccer.”

One younger player who showed a lot of confidence last year as an eighth grader was goalie Kynsli Gilmore.

“She’s only a freshman, but she started for us last year as an eighth grader, so expect another great year from her,” said Pfau.

The season got off to a good start with back-to-back shutouts; one a 2-0 road win at Mandan, and another a 5-0 home win over Bismarck Legacy.

“We just keep building our chemistry,” said Perrin, who scored four goals and recorded an assist against Legacy. “We’re getting stronger as a team; I think that our skill level is really good. We have gotten a lot closer, and our personalities match more. I think that will help us a lot.”