Over the past four seasons, Oakville Senior High School senior Emma Kriegel has developed into one of the best soccer players in the state.

Kriegel racked up 11 goals and 11 assists last season as the Tigers advanced to the Class 2 state quarterfinal. The senior midfielder also earned several postseason honors with Second Team All-Metro and Second Team All-State selections.

At Oakville, Kriegel has amassed 24 goals and 22 assists with six of those goals being game-winning goals.

Oakville head coach Dave Robben has enjoyed watching Kriegel evolve over the past four years into one of the best players in the state.

“This is Emma’s senior year and it’s been a great coaching experience watching her develop year to year into the player that she is,” Robben told the Call. “You could already see as a freshman that she was going to be a special player.”

Kriegel believes that the Tigers are returning an experienced core of players that could take them back to the playoffs this season. She’s also seen sophomore Elyse Hebenstreit take on the goalkeeper’s role with confidence, a position that was somewhat of a question mark at the beginning of the year.

As of last week, Kriegel had amassed two goals in the past two games.

Like many youngsters in south county, Kriegel got her first taste of soccer when she was 5 years old playing for St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in Oakville. She then moved on to the Kolping Kicks Soccer Club, but has played for the JB Marine Soccer Club for the past eight years.

Soccer is not the only sport that Kriegel plays at Oakville. This past winter, she played on the basketball team, averaging 4.8 points and 4.4 rebounds a game. The 5-foot-9-inch forward also produced 53 assists and 49 steals as the Tigers amassed a record of 14-11.

The daughter of Mariann and Brad Owensby and Bill Kriegel, she is a standout in the classroom with a 3.30 grade-point average and plans on majoring in business at St. Louis University this fall. Kriegel took into account several factors when making her decision to attend SLU. But it was the school’s close proximity to home and the quality of players already in the program that made her want to be a Billiken.

“I liked how it was close to home and I liked the coaches a lot,” Kriegel said. “It’s going to be an awesome team. The girls already there and the freshmen coming in are going to be really good.”