MARYSVILLE M-P soccer hosted Oak Harbor in its regular-season closer May 3, and took advantage of the game to honor the teams seniors.
Eleven red helium balloons reading Class of 2007 flew behind the Tomahawk bench during the game, anchored by a couple of candy bars in a gesture arranged by a players mom.
Its a little emotional for some of us as seniors. Its the last time we get to play soccer here for some of us at all though it is some consolation that we have the playoffs, said senior midfielder John Whitfield.
Whitfield is one of the lucky few graduating seniors who will be playing college soccer, committed to playing for Wartburg College in Iowa.
Senior goalkeeper Kaleb Kuehn is another. Kuehn, who has not yet committed to a program, started in the net against the Wildcats after winning an appeal of an April 27 red card that would have sidelined him on Senior Night.
The outcome of the game itself, 8-2 in the Tomahawks favor, seemed like a foregone conclusion despite back-to-back Oak Harbor goals for a six-minute, one-goal lead in the first half.
Fellow senior goaltender Jacob Newman scored the games first goal in his striker whites, putting Marysville up in the early going.
Oak Harbor evened the score with 27:16 left in the first period, setting off a flurry of M-P offensive attempts. From the sideline, junior Nick Burdetts kick nearly put the ball in the net single-handedly. A rebound attempt by senior Jake Berg flew over the goal by mere inches.
About four minutes later, Burdett drove the ball upfield again, passing to Whitfield in front of the net. Whitfields attempt erred to the right of the net.
With 12:35 left, Oak Harbor made it 2-1 in their favor, but the lead didnt last.
Once again driving up the left side of the field with 6:29 remaining in the period, Burdett landed a kick to send the ball careening across the front of the net into the right side of the goal.
Sophomore Seth Jones gave Marysville the 3-2 lead going into halftime with a goal in the final minutes.
The Tomahawks came out kicking early and often in the second half. Senior Matthew Metcalf had a turnaround kick less than a minute into the period, forcing sophomore Wildcats keeper Robert Hubner to leap for the stop. Freshman Brady Ballew had a couple more attempts before sophomore E.J. Sevon landed a goal midway through the 56th minute.
With 14:46 left in the game, Newman replaced Kuehn in the goal and Kuehn went in on offense with obvious relish.
Berg made it 5-2 with 13:18 left and Kuehn expanded the lead again three minutes later.
Senior forward Sean Wolfe scored again with 3:48 remaining, and in the final two minutes, Kuehn scored the Tomahawks eighth and final goal.
Though M-Ps win came at the expense of the 3-13 Wildcats, head coach Kyle Suits said the team is playing some of its best soccer right now as it heads into the playoffs with the No. 4 seed in Wesco North.
In the preseason polls we were picked to be No. 2. It took awhile to push that off and see what were capable of doing, Suits said. Were peaking at the right time. The cohesion is starting to come together.