Emporia High’s soccer team fell two goals short of a Titan Classic championship on Saturday at Wichita South High School, losing the Red bracket championship game to Hutchinson by a 1-0 score.
In the mind of Emporia coach Angel Cornejo, the Spartans (4-1) outplayed the Salthawks — but Cornejo also felt that earlier in the tournament, the Spartans had benefited from some big-time luck that helped them reach the tourney final.
“(Saturday), we weren’t lucky, and I think we played much better than Hutchinson,” Cornejo said. “But they scored, and we didn’t.”
The only goal of the game came from Andrew Howard, who scored with a mere 23 seconds to go until the halftime break. The Spartan defense was trying to just clear the ball out to stop the Salthawks’ last-minute attack.
“But they didn’t kick it far enough, and just gave it back to Hutchinson,” Cornejo said. “And then Hutchinson put it back in the box, and somehow, one of our defenders wanted to kick the ball out, and they somehow missed. And it went past one of Hutchinson’s players, and they just scored.
“It was frustrating, being scored (on) by that, but that’s what happens.”
Emporia put itself in position to produce a different result — the Spartans had seven shots on goal to Hutch’s five. Their biggest missed opportunity came when Jared Schafer took an open shot near the penalty-kick line, but his shot went off to the left.
“He thought there was gonna be more defense on him, and he found himself wide open, and I think he got nervous,” Cornejo said. “I don’t know what happened, but he didn’t put it in, and that was the best chance that we had.”
Cory Obermeyer had another strong performance in goal for the Spartans, and Cornejo was also particularly happy with the defensive play of Nic Hrabik.
“I told ’em they need to learn a lot from that game... because we basically dominated the game, but we couldn’t score,” Cornejo said. “And a few mistakes in the back on defense will cost us the game, and in this case will cost us the championship in the Titan Classic, or it might be the season or something else.”
Emporia will be at TRYSA on Tuesday for its second home match of the year. The Spartans will host Hayden beginning at about 6:15 p.m.