After a highly anticipated game, demanding a resilient effort from Park boy’s soccer, the section match against Southwest High School ended in a 1-4 loss. With the loss came the conclusion of their season Oct. 13. Assistant coach Pat Hartman said inconsistencies between the gameplay and the pregame plan led to the defeat, but the team put up a good fight regardless.

“We didn’t do a great job following the game plan and definitely suffered. They have a kid that does really good long throws and at least two of the goals were directly from throws,” Hartman said. “There were definitely some positives and some negatives. The kids had a pretty good match.”

Senior Eli Puchner said he attributed their rough start to temperature, though they were able to pick it up throughout the rest of the game.

“We were kind of on our heels to start off — just with the pace — and the cold really played a factor in it as well,” Puchner said. “We just started off slow and (then) picked it up towards the middle and into the end.”

According to senior Daniel Bevell, the outcome of the game was especially unfortunate since the team had the capability to play better. 

“As a team, there was a little bit more to desire — it was a hard end to the season,” Bevell said. “We proved to ourselves on multiple occasions that we can beat anyone, it just didn’t happen this time.”

According to Puchner, the conclusion of the season is very bittersweet, with many good memories to look back on.

“I’m sad, but I’m glad that I can just remember everything I’ve experienced — it was just a great season,” Puchner said. “It’s definitely my favorite season from all my years playing soccer, but I’m still really sad that it’s my last soccer game too.” 

Hartman said this season was a start of a new and promising beginning for Park boy’s soccer. Athletes’ positive responses to new coaching and competitive attitude when facing opposing teams contributed to their success.

“It was a good season. It definitely was a transition season, with Coach Opara taking over for Chato (Alvarez), who had been the head coach for over 20 years,” said Hartman. “Coach Opara has been in the program for about 10 years, so he had already been a part of our program and in a way, knew how things operated, but it’s always different with a new coach. However, I still think it was a pretty good season overall. We had really good team spirit and just a really good group of kids. We had some good wins and some real close games too.”