Sweet Home lost 6-0 to North Marion in the Huskies’ first-ever post-season appearance in boys soccer Saturday night at Sherwood High School.
The game ended the best season of Sweet Home’s two-decade history in the sport, a season in which they defeated Junction City twice. The Huskies had never beaten Junction City before. The Huskies tied Sisters, the first time Sisters didn’t beat them and the first league game Sisters has failed to win in four years.
They scrapped with Elmira for a second-place finish in league but finished third, their best finish to date.
Of the four teams they could have faced in post-season play, the most dangerous was North Marion, third in the Oregon West Conference, which sent four teams to the 16-team playoff bracket. Those teams also included Stayton, Newport and Philomath. Fourth-place Philomath defeated Elmira 3-1 to earn a spot on the playoff bracket.
“I think they’re (North Marion) tougher than Sisters, to be quite honest,” said Coach Eric Stutzer.
Two years ago, North Marion (which also is called the Huskies) was the state champion, and it returned players this season from that team.
“All of those boys had playoff experience,” Stutzer said.
Some 10 to 15 minutes into the game, North Marion scored three quick goals followed by a fourth near halftime, Stutzer said. “We were rocking back on our heels instead of contesting balls. They came out more ready to play than we did.”
North Marion won nearly all of the 50-50 balls, Stutzer said. Rawlins Lupoli won the Huskies’ only three during the first half.
Plagued by defensive mistakes, the Huskies gave North Marion too much space to shoot, Stutzer said, and North Marion scored its first goal on a 35-footer, followed by two more in the 25- to 30-foot range.
“Once we started playing, we did fine,” Stutzer said. Once he was able to get his subs in and start talking to his players, things started changing.
North Marion scored another pair of goals in the second half, but the Huskies had their chances and probably should have scored two goals of their own, with North Marion’s keeper stopping one of them, Stutzer said. “The second half wasn’t that bad.”
The Huskies started winning 50-50 balls and getting some good looks at the net, he said. “What got us there was our team play. In our first half, we didn’t have a lot of team play. It was panicked. I think they weren’t quite prepared for North Marion to be so physical, so fast.”
North Marion is small, matching up well with the Huskies in terms of size, he said, but North Marion’s players are “very physical and very, very skilled.”
“I think it just caught them off guard,” Stutzer said of his team.
Lupoli “was one of the best players on the field,” Stutzer said. “Ramon Mateo played very, very well. He definitely played himself a good game.”
Rowland Lupoli “had monster saves” at keeper, Stutzer said. He had more than 10 quality saves in the game.
Stutzer is proud of where his team went this season.
“I think they performed above expectations,” Stutzer said. Last year’s team graduated eight seniors.
To eclipse last season’s record performance, his team needed good combination play, and it needed play as a team and have the ability to win close games, Stutzer said.
The Huskies did that in spite of their lack of depth. In most games the Huskies had just 11 or 12 players. They had 13 players at one. Eleven play on the field at a time.
“(It’s) a real testament to the quality of the kids we have,” Stutzer said.
“We were going to have to play way above what we had on the field, and we did that,” Stutzer said. With a weakened defense this year, he had to draw from his offense, which cost the Huskies some goals. But it worked on defense.
The Huskies gave up their lowest number of goals ever – 34 – this season.
That came down to Rawlins Lupoli’s leadership on defense, Stutzer said, combined with good performances by Oscar Hernandez, Tristan Graham and Noah Dinsfriend, a sophomore starter.
This is a team that overcame a lot of adversity and difficult situations to finish its best season ever after just two years ago finishing last in league and nearly last in the state, Stutzer said. He recalled the first Junction City win.
“To come out and win that really set the tone of league play for us, and we didn’t look back,” Stutzer said.
“We lost eight seniors last year. To surpass what they did, what an awesome season.”
In girls soccer, the Huskies did not qualify for the play-in round. Finishing fourth, they had a chance, but it depended on rankings after the final round of regular-season games around the state on Oct. 25.