Indiana Preps | On The Line — IHSAA Boys Soccer
When Chance Strickley took over the Beech Grove boys soccer program in 2025, the Hornets were not talking about championships.
They needed to learn how to win a game again.
Beech Grove entered Strickley’s first season carrying a 26-match winless streak after going 0-16 in 2024. The Hornets won three times in 2025, enough to stop the slide and give the new staff something tangible to build around. MaxPreps lists that first Strickley team at 3-12-1.
One year later, Beech Grove finished 10-7.
Ten wins.
A postseason victory.
And, according to the school, the best season in the history of a boys soccer program that began in 1994.
That is the result. The part Strickley cares most about is how the Hornets got there.
“Brick by Brick” became the phrase attached to the rebuild. Nothing given. Everything earned. Get better every day and trust that the results will eventually follow.
For a program coming out of 26 consecutive matches without a win, there was not much reason to skip steps anyway.
Three Wins Became the Starting Point
The numbers show how far Beech Grove had fallen before the turnaround began.
The Hornets went 2-14 in 2022, 2-13 in 2023 and 0-16 in 2024. Strickley’s first team improved to 3-12-1 in 2025. The school described those three victories as Beech Grove’s most in a season since 2019.
They were not enough for anyone inside the program.
During the winter, Strickley and his players set a straightforward target for Year 2: double the win total. Six victories.
The Hornets passed that before the regular season was finished. Beech Grove entered the state tournament 9-6, and the school had already declared it the best overall season in program history before the postseason began.
Then the Hornets added one more.
The 10th Win Came in October
Beech Grove opened the Class 2A tournament against Purdue Polytechnic.
The Hornets won 4-1.
It was their 10th victory of the season and their first sectional win of the Strickley era. The following night, eventual sectional finalist Cardinal Ritter ended Beech Grove’s season 2-0.
That left the final record at 10-7.
The loss ended the season. It did not change what the season had become.
A group that entered 2025 trying to escape a 26-game losing stretch had produced double-digit victories less than two years later.
Strickley told Indiana Preps the Hornets scored 51 goals and allowed 26 on the season, a plus-25 margin. MaxPreps independently lists Beech Grove with 51 goals in its final statistical ledger.
The offensive production did not belong to one player.
Sanchez, Magwizi and Lopez Gave Beech Grove Multiple Ways to Score
Senior midfielder Maycol Sanchez finished with nine goals and nine assists.
Junior Courage Magwizi produced 10 goals and a team-high 18 assists.
Sophomore Jefferson Lopez led the Hornets with 13 goals and added six assists.
Those three combined for 32 goals and 33 assists in the statistics reported to MaxPreps.
Their roles were different. Lopez became the primary finisher. Magwizi created as much as he scored, finishing with a team-best 38 points. Sanchez gave the Hornets senior production in the midfield and closed with 27 points.
That balance became important late in the year. Beech Grove scored seven goals against Brown County on Sept. 29 and seven more against Monrovia two days later. The Hornets then carried that form into the postseason with four against Purdue Polytechnic.
This was not a team stealing a few one-goal games on its way to a better record.
By October, Beech Grove had developed an attack capable of putting matches away.
Melendez-Escobar Gave the Rebuild Something Behind It
The improvement was not only offensive.
Sophomore goalkeeper Oseas Melendez-Escobar finished with seven shutouts and 83 saves in Beech Grove’s reported statistics, an average of 5.2 saves per match.
One of those shutouts came Sept. 26 against Indianapolis Washington, when Beech Grove won 1-0. Days later, the Hornets shut out Monrovia 7-0.
For a rebuilding program, that part matters. Beech Grove did not reach 10 wins only because the scoring improved. There were nights when the defense had to preserve the result.
Melendez-Escobar and the group in front of him gave the Hornets enough of those nights to change the season.
The Number That Matters Most Is Not 10
Ten wins will live in the record book.
Strickley’s larger point is that none of it showed up immediately.
The program had to address discipline, accountability and what the coach described as commitment to the daily process. The 2025 team still lost 12 matches. The progress was three wins.
Then came winter work.
Then a six-win goal.
Then nine regular-season victories.
Then a sectional win.
Brick by brick.
It can sound like another program slogan until the results start matching it.
At Beech Grove, they did. The Hornets went from 0-16 in 2024 to three wins in 2025 to 10 in 2026.
And there is another reason the turnaround may matter beyond one senior class. Three of Beech Grove’s four statistical leaders return. Magwizi is a junior. Lopez and Melendez-Escobar are sophomores.
Sanchez leaves after helping establish what the new version of the program can look like. The others inherit the responsibility of proving this season was not the destination.
Beech Grove spent two years trying to change what was normal.
Twenty-six straight matches without a win used to be part of the story.
Now 10 wins are.
That is what rebuilding looks like when the slogan eventually becomes evidence.
Leave a Reply