By Sam Jack
TSnews
All three local boys soccer teams lost in regional play last week, concluding their seasons.
The Eisenhower Tigers came closest to a regional championship, beating Maize (4-11-2) 1-0 in the first round before falling 1-0 to Kapaun Mt. Carmel Catholic High School (8-7-2), 1-0. Braeden Boor scored the Tigers’ goal versus Maize.
“Maize played us tough,” Tigers head coach Roger Downing said. “They were a 15-seed, but I thought we played pretty well. We got a late goal and got the win. Then the Kapaun game, I think they had one shot all game, and the wind just caught it and it went in. We had about nine or 10 really good chances, and we just didn’t finish. That’s soccer sometimes.”
The Tigers finish their season with a 14-2-2 record, and win a league title for the fifth year in a row.
Playing in the same regional as Eisenhower, the Goddard Lions fell to Kapaun a round earlier, losing 3-0. The Lions were keeping pace with Kapaun through much of the game’s first half, but gave up Kapaun’s first goal on a penalty kick.
“We had three mistakes, and they scored on all three of them,” Lions head coach Josh Hansen said. “Kapaun, the quality of team they are, didn’t make mistakes, or the mistakes didn’t cost them. So we’ve just got to learn not to make mistakes around our goal, and hopefully that’s something we can build off of next year. … This is the first time we’ve hosted a regional game in almost 10 years. So a lot of things are going in the right direction for us.”
The Lions finish their season with an 8-7-2 record.
The Campus Colts traveled to Wichita Northwest for a regional play-in game on Oct. 25, losing 3-1.
“I actually thought it was one of our better offensive games, as far as possession goes,” Colts head coach Casey Reece said. “We had a ton of shots, especially in the first half, and every shot was just barely missing.”
The Colts’ 4-12-1 record is misleading about the quality of this year’s team, Reece said. Every loss, with the exception of a 6-0 defeat at Maize South, was decided by a margin of one or two goals.
“A lot of those games came down to a mistake here or there, a missed shot or save off the post,” Reece said.
