Valley girls soccer's Ella Anliker thriving, leads Tigers to Iowa soccer state tournament

In the 49th minute of the game between Urbandale and Valley girls soccer, a Tigers' attacker was struck down in the box to earn a penalty kick.

At that time, the sub-state final game was tied, 0-0. Both defenses suffocated any chance for offense. The few shots on goal for both teams were easily saved by the goalkeepers.

Firing in the PK could essentially seal the game for Valley the way both teams were playing.

In that crucial moment, there was no discussion on who was taking the spot kick. As soon as the official pointed to the spot, the team turned to senior Ella Anliker. Even after the play was blown dead, Anliker had already started walking toward the goal to take the shot.

With the pressure to bury a penalty kick to head to the state tournament, Anliker struck the ball past the Urbandale goalkeeper and found the back of the net.

"She goes up, whacks it and makes it look easy," Valley coach Robert Chapman said. "That's not an easy spot to be."

Making things look easy has been much of what Anliker has done this season. She's posted 19 goals, 16 from open play and three penalty kicks, on the season as the focal point of the Tigers' attack. She's averaged over a goal per game, leading the Tigers to a 15-3 record and the No. 5 seed in the Class 3A state tournament.

"As soon as the call got made, I just knew 100% it was going in," Anliker said.

However, her journey to that moment has been far from easy for the star forward.

Anliker takes a "leap of faith" to join Valley

Anliker's love for soccer started at a young age, beginning to play organized soccer at around 5 years old.

As a kid, she needed a way to get her energy out. For about nine years, soccer helped her expel energy, but results weren't following on the pitch. When she was 14, she was ready to quit after being relegated to the second tier of her club soccer team.

Then, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she couldn't find anything else better to do than to kick the ball around. After spending hours in her backyard practicing, things started to click.

When she returned to the pitch once games started again, she saw her game take a massive step forward. She was scoring goals and falling back in love with soccer.

For her first three years of high school competition, Anliker played for Dowling Catholic. In her freshman campaign, she recorded 16 goals and eight assists. She followed that with 14 goals and two assists as a sophomore. Both years, Anliker led the Maroons in scoring and made the state tournament.

Then in her junior season, Anliker's production dropped with a four-goal, seven-assist campaign. She played in just 11 of the team's games. As Anliker approached the summer, she identified that not all was right with her mental health. Battling anxiety and depression, Anliker felt she needed a change of scenery and to try something different.

The senior played club soccer with a few girls on the Valley team, so she took a "leap of faith" and made the decision to transfer to Valley. It was a move that she wasn't sure would pay off at the time. She said Dowling wasn't a bad place for her, but it never felt like home like she wanted it to be.

"(Dowling) treated me like family throughout the entire process," Anliker said. "I transferred to Valley for my senior year because it was just the best decision for me personally, academically and socially. It was just overall the best decision for me."

When Chapman found out Anliker was making the move, he was thrilled to add that type of talent to his team. Through her three years of competition, she had done enough to earn an offer and committed to the University of Northern Iowa to play midfielder for the Panthers.

Chapman had some different plans for the senior, though. With some injuries to a pair of returning starters in addition to seven graduating seniors, Valley needed goal scorers. Chapman approached Anliker and asked if she could play in the center forward/attacking midfielder position as the focal point of the offense.

As a midfielder for most of her career, it was going to be an adjustment, but the results are hard to argue with. Anliker sits in the top 10 of goals scored in Class 3A and leads the top goal-scorer in the CIML conference.

"To average a goal a game in our conference, which is the toughest conference in the state, that's pretty impressive," Chapman said. "She's carried our team in a lot of games."

Anliker says the past eight months at Valley have helped her find her true home. From the coaching staff to the athletic department and her teammates, she credited all of them with helping her mentally and with her performance on the pitch.

"Without them, I would not be where I'm at today," Anliker said. "They give me all the confidence in the world to step up and make those PKs."

This will now be the fourth time Anliker has appeared in the state tournament, but she has never advanced further than the semifinals. The goal this time is to, at a minimum, reach the state final.

That'll be a tough task for the Tigers, as their second-leading goal scorer, freshman Olivia Rotich, is battling injuries and could miss the tournament. The Tigers are still dealing with several injuries from before the season, too. If they can defeat No. 4 Linn-Mar in the opening round Tuesday, the Tigers will face the winner of No.1 Waukee Northwest vs. No. 8 Ankeny Centennial.

Both teams have beaten the Tigers in close matches already this season.

Anliker isn't too concerned about that at the moment. She said whatever the team believes it is capable of doing, it will accomplish it.

Regardless of what happens between now and then, Anliker is happy to have found her home before she takes her next step at UNI.

"Even if I didn't have a lot of success on the soccer field, it was just better for me as a whole," Anliker said. "That's why I made the decision and I'm super glad that I did. We've been doing really well this season. I couldn't be prouder of our team."

Eli McKown covers high school sports and wrestling for the Des Moines Register. Contact him at Emckown@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @EMcKown23.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Valley girls' Ella Anliker leads team to Iowa soccer state tournament