If West Liberty High School’s boys soccer team didn’t get a wake up call Monday night, they may be kissing their dreams of a Class 1A State title into the history books.
Oseola Clarke stunned the hometown favorite at Memorial Stadium by taking a 2-1 halftime lead, but Coach Walton Ponce brought them to reality with a halftime pep talk that led to scoring four straight goals.
The offensive onslaught led to a 6-4 Substate victory that put the Comets into the title match Wednesday, May 26, with Mid-Prairie, a team they beat just days earlier 5-0 for the rights to play among the top eight teams in the class for a state title.
Ponce said he told his team their “whole body of work was on the line,” noting the time and effort they put into club, Winter and the season was being “thrown away just because they couldn’t focus on the game at hand.”
The coach said he got "under the skin" of his team leaders and “called them out to lead and execute the game plan that we had set.” That pep talk resulted in an offensive onslaught Clarke coach Jorge Avalos had expected, knowing he was playing a really good team that basically showed their soccer power in the next 20 minutes before hanging on for the win.
Avalos said he never expected to have a halftime lead, but said he was “proud” of his team’s effort in not backing away from the Substate’s top seeded Comets.
Ponce said his team simply wasn’t ready to play. “We were sluggish and not quick in our passes,” he said. “We gave away a goal starting the game and the level of our play was just awful.” He said it wasn’t anything Clarke was doing, but rather the Comets not playing up to their ability.
He said the game plan took a whole new level in the second half. “We played with intensity defensively and we made it a point to go forward. We were the aggressor and Clarke couldn’t contain that,” Ponce said.
Clarke opened the game with a quick score at 34:39, junior Kamis Bulis, who scored all four Indian goals, getting the ball into the net past Ruben Meraz. West Liberty fought back to tie the score with Juan Mateo breaking open to score at 30 minutes and although both teams had opportunities, it wasn’t until 9:25 remaining in the half when Bulis struck again.
After halftime, West Liberty came out dominating offensively but failed to score until the 31 minute mark when Jahsiah Galvan slipped a goal into the corner of the goal past freshman Oscar Castro, who made a number of incredible saves.
It was just a minute later when Juan Mateo gave the Comets the lead for good, punching in another goal from the right side. The sophomore found paydirt again just over four minutes later off an assist from Galvan to give West Liberty a more comfortable 4-2 lead. At 18:05, galvan made it 5-2, with a break-away goal that left the Indian goalie on the ground.
Clarke scored again a couple minutes later to close the gap to 5-3, but Juan Mateo kicked home another goal at 9:15 to give West Liberty a 6-3 edge, only to be softened just moments later with another Bulis goal at 8:40, bringing the final score to 6-4.
Coach Ponce complimented the Clarke goalie for “definitely saving them from having a more lobsided score,” but said the Comet goalie, Meraz, had a great second half. “When he plays with confidence, he is a phenomenal player,” Ponce said.
The coach said his team learned a lesson from the outing. “We cannot have sluggish starts in the postseason. Anyone can beat you that way. We have to continue to trust our work and execute the plan of action for each game that we prepare,” said Ponce. “It took us too long to adjust. We need to be able to be coached as a whole and adjust when needed. There are a couple of details that we will clean up prior to Wednesday.”
Coach Ponce also complimented the play of outside back players Alexis Garcia and Israel Gomez, praising their first half play.
He also praised Dominic Hernandez and Julian Alvarado after getting penalized, calling it “seamless having them on the field which is what we want from our program. It's next man up.”