By COOPER BROCK
Achieving a major upset over Cypress Creek in their first district game, the predominantly underclassmen boys varsity soccer team moved on to the second round of districts. Team captain Alexander Bisbee, senior, scored the game’s lone goal to secure the win.
The boys previously played Cypress Creek in the middle of the season and lost, 1-2. In districts, they met at Cypress Creek for another attempt and won, 1-0. Senior Sebastian Carmona assisted Bisbee in scoring, and the team managed to hold Cypress Creek at bay for the remainder of the game.
“Cypress Creek is one of our main rivals. Coming back and playing them in districts was motivational for our team because we were able to have a second chance at knocking them out of the tournament,” Bisbee said. “We were happy to get out of the first round beating a rival team. We knew the game would be rough but we rose to the occasion and it paid off.”
Bisbee’s teammates and coach describe him as a key player on the field. He was a forward starter and scored 17 goals and assisted six others. He was named First Team All State and has verbally committed to a soccer scholarship at Rollins College.
The season as a whole was a losing season, with the boys winning less than a third of the games played. After two weeks of practice, the new players played their first game on Nov. 11 against Dr. Phillips. Throughout the entire game, the Panthers gave no leeway as they won 5-0.
Winter Park delivered a brutal defeat on Jan. 14. At the start of the game, Winter Park scored once, and then the Braves immediately countered with a goal scored by Carmona. Winter Park took over in the last 20 minutes of the game and scored four times.
“We had a young team,” Bisbee said. “There were a lot of kids who moved up from junior varsity last year, and we tried to overcome our diversity in size with our hard work.”
Though the team mainly consisted of underclassmen, some proved to be worthy adversaries to Edgewater on Jan. 16. Freshman Juan Caceres and sophomore Gianfranco Bertola scored four goals between them to beat Edgewater, 4-1.
“We were down in the beginning, but after the half we got our act together and started creating more scoring opportunities,” Caceres said.
In the rivalry game against University on Jan. 12, the hours of practice showed as they won, 3-1. Senior Sohail Mattar joined Bisbee in the effort to grasp the win with three goals between the two.
“The University game was a great win for us because they have also been our rivals. For the last two years, they have knocked us out of the district tournament, so it was very motivational for our team to win. After we beat them they were still trash talking us but we let the scoreboard talk for us. All we had to do was point towards it,” Bisbee said.
After the Cypress Creek game, the boys went to Timber Creek for their second district game. They were eliminated in a 0-3 shutout game. Finishing their season, they ended with a 6-13-2 record.