LAND O’ LAKES – Over the past two weeks, Nature Coast’s boys soccer team has cleared several hurdles. But on Saturday night, the Sharks finally stumbled, and a successful season came to a close.
Traveling to Sunlake for a Class 3A, Region 2 semifinal, Nature Coast pushed the host Seahawks almost literally until the final whistle before succumbing in a 3-2 defeat.
“We wanted to make a mess of it, and I think we did just that,” Nature Coast head coach Ian Wald said. “I’m so proud of the boys. We talked a lot about just fighting until the bitter end, and did we ever. We had three chances in the last minute just fighting till the bitter end.
“So, proud that we eliminated a lot of mistakes. I thought we outplayed them. I thought we had more chances than them. Sometimes it doesn’t go your way.”
Sunlake (28-1-2) has been an area powerhouse in recent year, and had defeated the Sharks (16-6-4) in the regular season, 6-0 on Jan. 9. But Nature Coast was buoyed by the fact Pasco, a team the Sharks shut out in the district final, found ways to score in a 4-3 loss to the Seahawks on Wednesday.
There were few offensive attempts on either side for much of the first half on Saturday, until it briefly appeared that Nature Coast had scored when a throw-in by Chris Reckner was headed in by Anderson Bamaca. However, the goal was waved off because a referee felt the keeper had been pushed in the back.
Moments later, with 11:38 left in the half, Sunlake was awarded a free kick off a yellow card and Sabi Restrepo scored directly off that opportunity.
Anthony Rodrigues scored off an assist by Tariq Michael at the 2:51 mark to make it 2-0 before the intermission.
Vinny Stulec got the Sharks on the board in the 49th minute, assisted by Reckner, but the Seahawks regained a two-goal advantage when Michael’s shot hit the crossbar and deflected in with 23:56 to play.
Stulec took a pass from Matt Johnson and found the back of the net as 3:51 showed on the clock. Nature Coast had multiple attempts on Sunlake’s half of the field in the final two minutes, filling the box with everyone including keeper Brian Urling.
The Seahawks withstood that late rally, however, to advance to the Elite Eight. The Sharks, who have made regionals fourth straight seasons, were making their first appearance in the Sweet 16.
“We just kept fighting. We didn’t change anything,” Wald said. “We thought we played really well in the first half. We thought we outplayed them in the first half and we just wanted to stick to the game plan. And I thought we outplayed them in the second half. We knew coming in they score 70 percent of their goals on free kicks and set pieces, and they capitalized on two of them tonight.
“It’s my eighth year here, and I’m proud of the fact that our coaching staff and I, every single year have gotten the most we could out of the players to the point where every year we take a step forward. Literally every single year, we’ve done something better than the previous year. We rewrite the record book in some way.
“At some point that becomes difficult to do. Coming into this year, I thought it was going to be almost impossible. We did it again. We broke just about every record. We got our first-ever (regional) playoff win. Just continuing to raise the bar and building a program over at Nature Coast.”
Follow Chris Bernhardt Jr. on Twitter @cpbernhardtjr.