Blue Valley West, one of the top teams in 6A, provided a measuring stick for the Emporia High soccer team on Tuesday night at TRYSA.
The verdict: the Spartans still have a ways to go after a 3-0 loss.
“We’ve got some young kids on the team, and some of them have never seen teams this good, and there’s better teams that we’ll run into,” EHS coach John Decker said. “But they needed to see this. They needed to see where you can go, and then we’ve got to be willing to work to get there.”
The Spartans played with the Mustangs for most of the first half, trailing 1-0 going into the final two minutes of the half.
Blue Valley West ended any chances EHS had at a comeback in the final two minutes. With 1:28 left in the first half, Alexis Aiman gave the Mustangs a 2-0 lead.
In the final seconds of the half, EHS defender Bailey Sosa ran down Blue Valley West’s Marisa Windisch and slide-tackled her as the clock expired. Windisch scored on a penalty kick to give the Mustangs a 3-0 lead.
“We have them at a one-goal game, we had a couple opportunities, but a one-goal game, we can knock one in and get a second opportunity and win the game,” Decker said. “Giving up two goals in 1:28, that took a lot out of them.”
Decker challenged his team at halftime to come out with more energy in the second half, but that didn’t happen. The Mustangs controlled the ball for most of the half on their end and Emily Burris got off the Spartans’ only shot on goal in the second half. Burris had both shots on the night for EHS.
Although EHS goalie Melanie Nuessen held the Mustangs scoreless in the second half, Decker said his team’s performance was better in the first half.
“We were more aggressive,” he said. “We passed the ball more. We were willing to challenge for balls out in the middle of the field and win them there, all those things we didn’t do well in the second half.”
Emporia dropped to 3-1 with the loss. Blue Valley West improved to 4-1. The Mustangs’ only loss this season was against Olathe East, which is ranked 16th in the nation.
“They are a very, very good team, and I knew this was going to be a huge challenge coming in, but we have a ton of potential this year and the second half we played horrible,” Decker said. “I don’t know what it was, maybe I need to change my halftime speech, but we need to get more out of them.”