SPRING COACH OF THE YEAR

Moses leads Rams to first-ever state soccer title

When Craig Moses took over as head coach for the Lakeside Rams in 2004, he knew he had big shoes to fill as the year before coach Terry Vestal led the team to the school’s first-ever state title game.

Vestal, who started the Rams’ soccer program in 1998, led Lakeside to the state playoffs every year but 1998, a tradition that Moses has been able to continue, but Moses had also been unable to lead the Rams to a state title.

At least that was the case until earlier this month when, on the Rams’ fifth trip to the state soccer finals, Moses led the team to their first Class 5A state title in his fourth trip with the team.

“I know the only time Lakeside has never made the playoffs in boys soccer was ‘98, their first season,” Moses said. “The rest of the time, from ‘99 to 2018, they have been in the playoffs. All the way from 2003 with the first championship game when coach Vestal took them, and all the way we’ve had teams build up and build up. I’ve had kids and parents from all the way back to 2004, 2005 call me and congratulate me this week. They’re still a big family and still a big part of it.”

Leading Lakeside to its first-ever Class 5A state soccer title, Moses is The Sentinel-Record’s All-Garland County 2018 Spring Sports Coach of the Year.

While the Rams appeared to be primed for a state title last season with a final record of 19-5-1, it was Valley View, this year’s Class 5A soccer runner-up, that ended Lakeside’s bid for a state title in the quarterfinals.

“Last year, I thought our season did not end the way we wanted it to,” Moses said. “Getting second in our conference and getting to the quarterfinals to get knocked out by Valley View was not the way we wanted to end it, but it did.”

This year, Lakeside had a run of adversity, starting in its second game of the season against Pulaski Academy. From that March 1 game, the Rams did not have a single game where they were at full strength until their May 1 match against Hot Springs in the 5A-South district tournament.

“We had injuries the second game of the year,” Moses said. “It went all the way through to the end of the season. We got everybody back going into the district tournament. We didn’t jell very well going into the tournament.”

Unfortunately, the Rams were not able to step back into the same roles they had at the start of the season as easily as Moses and the players had hoped, leading to a rough district tournament.

Lakeside fell in both district tournament games, leaving a team that had gone

10-2 in the 5A/6A-6 to finish on top of the conference standings to take the No.

4 seed from the 5A-South into the state tournament.

Despite the uphill battle that the Rams were to face over the next two weeks, Moses knew he had something special with this team.

“This year, I knew that we had a good core group,” he said. “We had to find fillers. We lost a good goalkeeper in Ryan Viscardis and lost Jack Butler, a great midfielder, and a good defensive person, Joseph Pultz. We knew we had to fill these three spots, and I knew if I could fill those three spots, we could have a special season.”

Moses managed to find those three players, although it took almost half the season for a keeper to come to the forefront.

“We got lucky with Devin (Nieto) stepping up,” Moses said. Anthony was my projected starter going in; he battled all year long. Like I said before, Devin had just a little bit more athletic ability that he stepped up at the end when it counted.”

The Rams faced the top-seeded team from the 5A-West, Maumelle, in the first round of the state tournament. The Hornets had allowed just four goals with a 15-0 record before Lakeside found its first upset of the tournament, winning 3-2 in the second overtime period.

Lakeside then downed Batesville, 2-1, in the quarterfinals before facing Little Rock Christian Academy, the No. 2 seed from the 5A-Central that defeated two-time defending state champion Hot Springs in the quarterfinals.

Despite being down 1-0 at the break, the Rams managed to battle back, even after playing nearly 30 minutes with only

10 players on the field. After evening the score, Russell Gartner got his second yellow card to collect a red, ending his season, but Lakeside stepped up the pressure, outscoring the Warriors, 2-1, in the final

28:30 to earn the 3-2 win and advance to the state final against Valley View.

The Rams got on the board first as Philip Gayle scored on a penalty kick in the 17th minute as Lakeside rolled to a 2-1 lead at the break. The team continued to dominate early in the second half as they took a 4-1 lead in the 49th minute.

“Not in my wildest dreams would I think we would have a 4-1 lead at any point,” Moses said, recalling the three-goal lead in the final. “I thought it was going to be a battle from beginning to end. Of course, at the end, it was a battle, trying to survive there at the end. Not at all would I have ever thought it would be a 4-1 lead with 30 minutes left in the game.”

Valley View did not relent as the Blazers scored in the 61st minute and again in the 76th minute to pull within 4-3, which ended up being the final as the Rams held off the Blazers for the final four minutes.

“I think we got tired,” Moses said. “Emotionally, we were tired, and we got heavy legs. You could sort of see that. We got into survivor mode a little bit. We stopped attacking; we got more defensive-minded, which is typical. It’s very typical thing for teams to do. I think a lot of it though was we got tired.”

When the final buzzer sounded however, his relief was instantaneous.

“It’s over,” he admitted to thinking at the end of the match. “It’s over. The long wait (for a state title) has ended, and it’s over.”

Moses always impressed one thing on his players — family, an idea that the team has taken to heart from before he started coaching the Rams.

“It was kind of established a little bit,” he said of the idea. “I think I just didn’t mess it up. I just piggy-backed on it and took it with me. I think it was already there. It was already a very close-knit community for soccer because they had to fight so hard to get it.”

After a record season, Moses still is not sure what drove the Rams to success on the pitch.

“I don’t know what the magic potion was,” Moses said. “I think a lot of it was these seniors did not want to stop playing. They’ve been playing together a long time.”

One thing that did aid in the team’s performance was the ability that Moses had to find players to fill in those key roles when his starters were out of commission, including the state final Midfielder Nic Cato moved to the central midfield for Gartner, who was unable to play due to the red card he earned in the semifinal.

“We were very fortunate of being able to play a lot of kids — not very much, 5, 10, 15 minutes a game — and they filled it pretty good,” Moses said. “We had used Nic Cato before in the middle when Russell was injured. That’s who filled his spot, so we knew he could play that middle for us, but we just didn’t know if we were going to have enough firepower on the wings. We played it as a committee, and I thought they stepped up and played well.”