Minot High goaltender Kynsli Gillmore earned all-state honors last season, recording 74 saves and 12 shutouts. The Majettes allowed just eight goals in 19 matches and return their entire defense. Nathan Beitler/MDN

At the beginning of each season, all 18 teams across the state of North Dakota dream of making it to the state championship match as one of the final two squads left standing after two months of competition.

Those dreams have been reality for the Minot High girls soccer team each of the last six seasons. The Majettes have appeared in every state championship game since 2019, winning three straight between 2021-23 (the 2020 season was canceled due to COVID-19). Minot High is the only program in North Dakota girls soccer history to advance to more than four state title games in a row. Fargo South appeared in four straight championships from 2006-09.

Minot High’s last two trips to the championship match haven’t ended the way it would have liked. The Majettes lost to Fargo Davies in 2024 and to Mandan last season. Minot High entered both of those championship matches unbeaten on the season.

“Getting to the state tournament is your first goal, but with the group of kids that we have back, we’re looking to go deep into the tournament,” Minot High coach Matt Pfau said. “Losing in the state championship the last two years added some fuel to get back to that game again this year.”

The Majettes return all but three players from last year’s team that finished 15-1-3 overall and 13-0-3 in conference play, winning their fifth consecutive WDA title. Minot High graduated Jayda Schall, Morgan Forthum and Makenna Aldrich, losing 54 points worth of offense, as they combined to score 29 goals and register 25 assists. Forthum finished second in the WDA in scoring with 23 points, while Aldrich’s 17 points tied her for fifth. Aldrich was an all-state selection last year, while she and Forthum were all-WDA picks.

“This year we’re going to have a few more younger girls stepping up into the positions that the seniors left open for them and I think a lot more girls are going to have the opportunity to get some good minutes on the field,” junior midfielder Aleah Gibbons said.

Gibbons and senior forward Jayva McKibben are the top returning scorers for the Majettes. McKibben, an all-WDA selection in 2025, recorded 17 points on 13 goals and four assists and Gibbons notched 13 points on six goals and seven assists. McKibben tore her ACL in May, but has been cleared by her medical team and has been practicing with the team leading up to the start of the season. Pfau said McKibben could be on a minutes restriction early in the year.

The Majettes received scoring contributions from 19 players last season – 18 netted at least one goal. With the loss of three of their top scorers, Pfau is looking for new players to fill that role as consistent goal scorers.

“It’s going to be fun offensively to see which kids will emerge as goal scorers for us,” Pfau said. “We’ve had a lot of kids play varsity minutes and scored three or four goals at the varsity level, but seeing which kids can take that next step to go get 10 goals, 12 goals, something like that and really be a threat for us.”

Minot High’s offense put up 74 goals last season, netting five or more in seven contests.

It’s business as usual on the defensive side of the pitch. The Majettes return their entire defensive roster as well as all-state goaltender Kynsli Gillmore. Minot High surrendered just eight goals all season and didn’t allow more than one in a match leading up to the title game. The Majettes outscored opponents 35-1 in the first half.

“It helps so much,” Gillmore said. “I know where everyone’s at. I don’t have to learn how someone else plays and we flow together because we’ve played together for so long. We all grew up playing together and playing in the same program for travel soccer. A lot of us built really tight connections through that and traveling places and spending every weekend with each other and having that team chemistry.”

Gillmore led the WDA during the regular season with a 91.5 save percentage and recorded 10 shutouts, tied with Mandan’s Gabby Frolich. During the postseason, Gillmore added two more shutouts and 20 saves in three matches.

“We’re very spoiled to have Kynsli, “Pfau said. “She’s an incredible goalie. I think she has the college potential to go play Division II or Division I if she decides to go that route. Defensively, you can always get better defensively by marking up and communicating. The one thing we’ve been good at is we haven’t given up bad goals. We make the other team earn it when they score. We just have to limit the bad goals and limit the breakaways and this group of girls have done a good job with that and we return them all.”

In front of Gillmore on defense are freshman Cambri Schatz, sophomore Grace Hegstad, juniors Cayley Gibbons and Syvanna Maree Fowler, and seniors Bianca Cofell and Camdyn Varty.

“Our defensive end of things will be strong because we didn’t lose any defenders,” Gillmore said. “That will be a huge strength for us because we are a strong defensive team and we’re really good at getting the ball back if we lose it.”

It has been a golden era for girls soccer at Minot High. Prior to 2019, the Majettes hadn’t won a state title and advanced to the championship match once, falling to West Fargo on penalty kicks in 2010. Not only have they played for a state title the past six years and won half of those matches, but they have been nearly untouchable during the regular season. In their run of three straight titles from 2021-23, Minot High was 51-0-1. The Majettes were unbeaten in 70 consecutive matches before losing in the 2024 title match to Fargo Davies. During that season, the Majettes outscored WDA opponents 119-0.

“We have just had really good kids and it’s kids that have dedicated themselves to soccer and we do have some multi-sport kids, but for most of them soccer is their main sport and they play all summer and they play all winter,” Pfau said. “It’s been an incredible run of kids who really love the game. They’re committed to it and when you play year-round, it makes it a lot easier to come into the high school season to have a bunch of talented kids to pick from.”

Both Aleah Gibbons and Gillmore are in their fifth year at the varsity level and have been a part of four state championships. They experienced the thrills of victory against Fargo Shanley in 2022 and Fargo Davies in 2023, and the heartbreak of defeat against Fargo Davies in 2024 and Mandan last season. The 2023 victory against Davies sticks out the most of all the title games for both. For Gillmore, it was her first time starting at goalkeeper in the title game after serving as the backup in 2022. For Aleah Gibbons, the 2022 title showed that the run of title game appearances was only getting started.

“That was a moment where we realized that we still have great potential in the years to come because the year prior we lost a good amount of seniors,” Aleah Gibbons said. “It shows how much we can do with a younger team.”

While the losses sting and linger, they also serve as motivation. Having lost the last two title games, the Majettes don’t want to have it happen a third time.

“‘I’ve noticed in practice that we work harder and work on what we need to fix and we do the best we can because we don’t want to feel that loss in the state championship for the third year in a row,” Aleah Gibbons said. “Our goal is to win it and we know what it feels like to win it and we know what it feels like to lose, so it motivates us to keep working hard and get back up there again.”

Playing in the championship match every year, it could be easy for the Majettes to already have one eye looking toward the postseason, but Pfau believes his team is focused on the schedule in front of them, which begins on Friday, March 27, against Williston at 7:30 p.m. at Duane Carlson Stadium. Without a WDA Tournament to determine state tournament seedings, every regular season match has a playoff feel to it, Pfau said.

“It’s that old cliche that you have to take it one game at a time,” Pfau said. “In soccer it’s unique that you qualify for the state tournament off of your regular season. You don’t play a WDA tournament, so every game is essentially a playoff game. You have to get your points in the regular season to make it to the state tournament. That’s the message we’ve always preached to our kids and they have done an outstanding job of understanding that we have to win in the regular season if we want to have a chance at making the state tournament. It’s a simple approach, but it’s worked.”

The Majettes were picked to finish second in the preseason coaches’ poll behind defending state champion Mandan. The Braves won their first state tournament in 2025 and return Gatorade North Dakota Soccer Player of the Year Sarah Helderop. Helderop scored 31 goals last season, netting five of the Braves’ six goals in the state tournament.