Lebanon's historic run through soccer postseason ends
May 18—Lebanon's historic run through the high school boys' soccer tournaments ended Tuesday with a 3-2 loss to visiting Rockvale in the Region 4-3A first round.
This was the Blue Devils' first region tournament game since the program's 1996 founding, coming off their first district championship and first district tournament win since 2003. Their final 9-10 record matched the school record for wins first set in '03 and matched last year.
Coach Kyle Bennett said this marks a new benchmark for a program he expects to meet moving forward.
"We have six seniors," Bennett said following the game. "I played about four of them had some big minutes. But we have a pretty young team. I think we had a combined seven underclassmen start this game tonight.
"I told the seniors 'thank you for what you've done for the program'. But this is standard. This is where we want to be every single year. We just got to keep it up and keep working at it."
Injuries were also a factor at the end of the season as three of the four co-captains who started the season were out. Senior Drew East played but was hampered by a groin injury.
"He came out there and he gave it all he had," Bennett said of East. "We could have made excuses for injuries. We could have made excuses all season long. But they came in and kept their head down and kept working and you see where that got us."
After a one-hour weather delay backed up the start of the match, Lebanon took the early lead as Gavin Barrett sent Ford Graviss' assist into the next just over 10 minutes in for a 1-0 advantage.
Rockvale dominated a stretch with around 10 minutes left. The Rockets tied the game 9:48 before halftime and drew a foul in the box for a penalty kick less than a minute later for a 2-1 edge.
Lebanon finally pulled even with less than 11 minutes left when Max Wosiak took a rebound off the post and sent it in for a 2-2 draw.
But the tie was short-lived as Rockvale scored the tie-break with 7:26 to go.
Lebanon had a couple of chances in the closing moments to force what would have been the Blue Devils' third overtime of the postseason but came up short.
"I told the guys 'you got to come out strong' and I felt (Monday) we were 'we won the district championship and that's a good season'," Bennett said. "You're in a whole new tournament this week. It's a region tournament. You got go out there and play hard and I thought we were prepared for this. They came out and — credit to the guys, credit to the seniors — they came and locked in. We got that first goal and, unfortunately, we weren't able to hold on, but happy with how they played."
Rockvale had 11 shots on goal with Lebanon keeper Matt Leinart posting eight saves. The Blue Devil had six shots on goal.
