After a very physical and intense game against the Madras White Buffalo’s, the Bruins Varsity Boys Soccer team earned their way to another home field advantage in the 4A soccer semi-finals.
Moving up in the bracket means that the opponents don’t get any easier. With that, the Bruins earned the right to meet the defending 4A champion Newport Cubs at Bruin field TOMORROW afternoon at 2:00 pm.
The Cubs defeated the Madras White Buffalo’s last season to win the 4A championship on penalty kicks after a scoreless first and second half of play in the final Championship game of the season.
However, the Cubs are not the same team that won it all last year, Newport graduated 8 seniors last year and struggled to a 7-2-1 record in the regular season losing twice to the 10-0 #2 seeded Stayton Eagles and recorded a draw against a 4-5-1 Philamouth team.
This year the Cubs scored 55 goals and allowed 20 goals against. But they should not be taken lightly as they have had to take the hard road to get to semi-finals. They had to play a ‘play-in’ contest against a 4-3-3 Elmira team defeating them 5-1.
They next faced the 7-3 #8 ranked Phoenix team and defeated them 2-1. The 9-0-1 Bruins played the same Phoenix team to a 1-1 tie in a preseason contest earlier this year.
Saturday afternoon, after the Bruins ended #5 seeded Madras’s season, the Newport Cubs dispatched the #1 seeded 9-0-1 Seaside Seagulls.
Even though the Cubs graduated 8 seniors last year, they bring 10 seniors to the field tomorrow. They are a confident mature team that does not give up. They won their first playoff game against Phoenix scoring the winning goal with 2:11 left in the game. They then matched up with #1 Seaside and ended their season with 42 seconds left in 1-1 game.
The Bruins will have their hands full tomorrow afternoon as they face a team that knows how to win and believes they are never out of a game. But, 4A Coach of the Year Jess Beaman has consistently shown that he brings a mentally prepared team to the pitch and surely he will do the same tomorrow afternoon.
This pencils out to be a very very good matchup and will prove to be a very exciting contest. The community needs to fill those sidelines tomorrow and provide these young men with the very best home field advantage possible.
Be at Bruin field TOMORROW at 2:00 pm, and be loud.