Upholding a perfect streak of making it to the state playoffs every season since Jesuit was amalgamated into the UIL in 2004, the Varsity soccer team advanced to take on Plano West at Plano Clark Stadium on Friday, March 28 at 7:30 in the opening round of the 5A playoffs. The Rangers had established a name for themselves among the other schools in their region. The team finished the regular season with a 7-0-2 record and tied for the most wins in District 9, but settled for 3rd place in the overall team standings. Closing their regular season with a six game winning streak, Plano West’s regular season finished off with a 12-4-5 record.
Plano West hosted the Rangers in their own Clark Stadium. Throughout the first and second half, no team scored, tying the game at 0-0 and putting it into overtime. Like regulation, overtime was scoreless, keeping the teams in a 0-0 stalemate. Plano West and the Jesuit Rangers moved on to penalty kicks, where Plano West succeeded over Jesuit in sudden death format.
The penalty kicks that decided the game were quite strange. With Jesuit ahead, the referee miscounted and awarded Jesuit the win before realizing that they still had to make one additional kick. Unfortunately, they were not able to and subsequently lost.
Junior varsity coach and sophomore counselor, Mr. David Williams, says that he “doesn’t think the penalty kicks were controversial at all!” He believes that it just came down to the fact that “[Plano West] made their [penalty kicks] and we missed ours.” He also explains that he doesn’t “blame the ref about anything.” Nonetheless, after a great regular season and a disappointing loss in the playoffs, the coaches and players could not be more proud of their team and the accomplishments that they achieved over the season.
Throughout their cavalcade during the season, winning games both home and away, ten players from the Varsity soccer team ended up on the score sheet with goals made in games over the course of the regular season. Leading the statistics, Juan Torres ’14 had 10 goals overall. Following closely behind, Ross Minigutti ’14 had a total of 9 goals, Brandon Ozier ’14 had 7, and Gio Montesdeoca ’16 had 6, just to name the teams top finishers during the season. The Jesuit Rangers as a whole finished the season with an overall total of 46 goals. With an obviously impressive offense, Jesuit arguably had an even more remarkable defense that bolstered the team. Bret Barnet ’14 and Collin Buechel ’15, the primary keepers for the squad, finished with an average of 0.60 goals against on the season and a combined total of 12 shutouts.
Though the Rangers have to say goodbye to some great senior players, they will look ahead to next year to hopefully be even more successful than this year. They will have to forget the tough playoff loss and strive to avenge their defeat in next year’s playoffs.
