Mankato West vs.

Mankato East

1 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 21

Certain rivalries transcend current season results, records, rankings and past histories. They are the rivalries that are impossible to handicap, the ones where either team could win on any given night.

Mankato West versus Mankato East in girls’ soccer? Yeah, this isn’t one of those.

West has ruled southern Minnesota’s Key City in recent history, winning the last three meetings with East by a combined scored of 16-2. The Scarlets qualified for the last three Class 1A state tournaments, reaching the championship game in 2016, when they recorded a 2-1 loss to Benilde-St. Margaret’s.

During that stretch, East has mostly been posting middling regular-season records and early section playoff exits, with a run to the Class 1A, Section 2 title game in 2015 serving as the lone exception. But this season, well, it just might be different. At least it looked that way as the Cougars won their first six games, four of them by shutout, before stumbling last week with two losses — 4-1 to Owatonna on Sept. 10 and 2-1 to Fairmont on Sept. 14. 

West (7-1-1, 5-1-0), ranked No. 7 in the Class 1A state coaches’ poll from Sept. 8, has been cruising along as usual, registering just one loss — 3-0 to Owatonna on Aug. 29 — in its first nine games as Kristen Rasmussen has six goals, and goalkeeper Claire Hemstock has made 52 saves and allowed just six goals.

Despite East’s recent stumbles, we’re picking this Big 9 Conference matchup as our Top Game of the Week based on the Cougars’ (7-2-0, 5-1-0) still-impressive start to the season behind the play of senior defender and captain Olivia Starkey, and goalkeeper Emily Eckheart, among others.