The Huskies their final game this season in boys soccer 12-0 at Newport.
“The first 20 minutes, they played really well,” said Coach Eric Stutzer. “There was a questionable call,” and it took the momentum out of the Huskies.
The Huskies played the game without four of their fastest players, Bradley Wolthuis, Noah Dinsfriend, Evan Davis and Andrew Baham for different reasons, Stutzer said. That removed a lot of the team’s speed and experience on defense.
“When you have all that speed off that back line, it’s hard to be competitive,” he said. He moved players around the field to get them experience in different positions.
The game capped off a difficult season with no wins or ties. After graduating a number of key players last year, the team was left young and inexperienced.
Stutzer said 12 players will receive their first letter in the sport, while just three players will earn a second-year letter and three will earn a third-year letter. The team was also depleted a lot along the way, with numerous players missing games for various reasons.
“We’re in the best league in the state,” Stutzer said. Woodburn, Stayton and Newport are all on the state playoff bracket.
“Unless pigs fly, one of them will be the state champion,” Stutzer said. “I would be hard-pressed to see Woodburn or Stayton not (being) champion.”
Newport stepped up its game from the first half of the season, Stutzer said. It wasn’t as disorganized. Its keeper is exceptional, and Newport could have a shot too. Newport beat Gladstone, another good team, 4-3 in the play-in round.
Stutzer is optimistic about next year.
The Huskies played well against Cascade, losing 3-1 at the end of the season, Stutzer said. That’s a team that handed Stayton one of its only two losses this year. Woodburn split games with Stayton in league play, and Stayton is the only team to beat Woodburn at all.
The Huskies held the lead against Cascade until the last five minutes of the first half, Stutzer said, but they let a couple of goals go by and missed a couple of shots they should have had.
The team met its goals, Stutzer said. “We had a starting point and an endpoint. At our endpoint, we were going to be better than our starting point. We took a bunch of first-year players and put them in a position where they were competing against Cascade. Cascade at the end of the season wasn’t a slouch team. That’s just a testament to our improvement.”
Of course, the other teams all improved during the season as well, Stutzer said, but this team as young as it is, played well enough it would have been competitive in the Sky-Em League where it was last year.
“The thing I’m most proud of is these boys didn’t give up,” Stutzer said. They had every reason, but they didn’t. They came together, faced adversity and stayed competitive.
“You don’t get kids like that very often,” Stutzer said, and that’s why they were sixth in the state among 4A boys soccer team for academics, with a 3.34 average GPA.
On the pitch, “we’re going to be struggling to compete the next couple of years in this league,” Stutzer said, but if the kids can get some experience under their belts between seasons, they can be more competitive, especially as personnel changes.
Sisters graduates eight seniors, including two of its best, Stutzer said. Cascade is young and will return a lot of players, but Philomath is losing nine senior, and Newport is losing eight.
Stayton will return a lot of players, he said; and while Woodburn loses 10 seniors, it has a deep program.
Sweet Home could see closer matchups next season, he said, especially with four or five new players coming onto the team next year from the local youth program.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Stutzer said. “We’ve got a lot of talent coming in.”
They’re the first players coming out of the youth leagues that started when Stutzer and assistant Coach Huck Thomas took over the program, Stutzer said. The Huskies will be young next year, but they’ll have some experienced seniors and athleticism..