Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Lightning Postponement Hurts Wolves
LINCOLN — Postponement of Saturday’s Class 3A State boys soccer semifinal until Monday diminished certain advantages Lincoln might have otherwise capitalized upon and the Wolves lost 4-1 to LISA Academy West.
Lincoln loaded up its boys soccer team on the bus and traveled to Harrison Saturday geared to compete but lightning nixed that and the Wolves eager to play for a chance to go to Friday’s Class 3A State Finals against Harding Academy had to put those aspirations on hold.
The postponement weighed on the mindset of a team primed to play three days in a row on Saturday.
“Today’s been pretty rough on them. We traveled up to Harrison and got there around two and then waited and waited and waited. They told us they were going to postpone until Monday,” said Lincoln coach Mason Wann after Friday’s 1-0 quarterfinal victory over Central Arkansas Christian which advanced Lincoln into the Class 3A State semifinals against LISA Academy West.
The Jaguars defeated Cossatot River, 4-1, in the first-round and Decatur, 4-2, in Friday’s quarterfinal round, yet Wann thought the factor of playing three straight days in hot temperatures would have favored Lincoln.
“I felt pretty good Saturday about it because we’ve been able to rotate guys in, but it gives us another two days to kind of recoup because we’ve got some guys that are banged up and we’re very tired of course because they’ve played two full matches back-to-back in very warm weather they haven’t played in all year,” Wann said.
Wann expected on Monday the team might be not realistically be totally fresh, but fairly fresh and with the match played at 7 p.m. the weather would be cooler.
He projected the contest should be a good matchup, but admitted not knowing too much about the Jaguars. Lincoln did get to see them play a little bit by catching the end of the Jaguars’ match against Decatur after Lincoln finished its match Friday.
According to Wann, going into Monday’s semifinal LISA Academy West appeared pretty fast and capable of taking some long shots on goal.
“They have a lot of guys who can run and they’re all about similar sizes. They’re not overly big, but we also felt good Saturday because Decatur plays very physical and we were scheduled to play them the day after they played Decatur. That might have been good for us as well. So it might give two days to recover,” Wann said.
LISA Academy West came in with a 10-0-1 record, yet Wann felt confident going into the match because Lincoln played the whole 3A West Conference twice and all the other 3A conferences only played each other once.
“I think that’s really helped us as far as us being in better shape and in the weather and things. Also playing a team like Green Forest, which was the defending state champions, playing them twice this year that helps us a lot seeing that,” Wann said.
The double round robin format had Lincoln playing teams such as Decatur twice. Wann noted Decatur was a quarterfinal team and came close to being a semifinal team. He also said playing teams like Haas Hall and Thaden, which he rated as both playoff caliber teams also helped hone the Wolves for a state tournament run.
On a footnote to an outstanding season by Lincoln, senior scoring sensation Rafael Regaldo- Pena exceeded the personal objective he set for himself to score at least
30 goals this season.
Coming into Monday’s Class 3A State semifinal, Pena had 34 goals on the season including three in the state tournament.
“He’s a super hard worker. He’s got one gear on the field. That’s big time and he’s done a great job this year, I mean just helping get things set up. He’s played with some of those guys for awhile so that helps for sure. He knows where to go and where to be. He’s a very good player of course,” Wann said.
Wann remained optimistic up until Monday’s semifinal loss about the opportunity to compete for a chance to play for a state soccer championship in spite of the postponement.
“It’s very cool, we were very excited for it for sure. We were the only non- one seed to make it to the semifinals,” Wann said.