Boys’ soccer finishes season against Olathe West
Senior Ethan Rodriguez tries to shake off the player from Olathe West High School at the game on Oct. 24
The De Soto High School boys’ soccer team played its last game of the season against Olathe West High School on Tuesday, Oct 24.
Junior Daniel Apple scored during the first half of the game, with the score being 1-0 at the half. In the second half, OWHS had two goals, but junior Sean Eggers was able to tie it up, causing the game to go into overtime. After two 10-minute overtimes and two five-minute overtimes with no goals, the game went down to penalty kicks where DHS ultimately lost.
Even though the team did not plan on losing, they knew beforehand that it would be a tough game.
“Going into the game we felt as if we were the underdogs knowing that they were going to be a talented team despite losing lots of games during the season,” said senior co-captain and goalkeeper Blake Webber. “Knowing they were all freshman and sophomores we knew that we would be stronger and faster, but they would be more talented on the ball.”
DHS put up a fight for the whole game.
“I felt like we started off kind of slow, but once the game got going we started playing like ourselves, and it ended up being a real[ly] good game,” said senior co-captain and forward Ethan Rodriguez. “When two good teams play each other it’s going to be a good game so that’s what happened.”
Going down to penalty kicks can be stressful for any player, especially for a goalkeeper, but Webber has his way of dealing with penalty kicks.
“When I’m in goal against penalty kicks I’m not nervous. I just hope I can stop one or two but unfortunately that didn’t happen,” Webber said.
Overall, Webber thinks the team played well, but the team fell short.
“As a team, I felt like we played [well]. We had opportunities to score but failed to. We gave everything we had and put up a great fight,” Webber said. “Overall, the team played great, but we just couldn’t get it done.”
Rodriguez also believes that the team fought hard, but not their best.
“As a team I feel like we didn’t play our best game, I’d say one of our best games is probably midway through the season, but we played pretty decent,” Rodriguez said. “Not our worst performance, but it was a good showing and I hope all the fans had fun coming.”
