Familiarity sometimes can breed contempt, and for the second year in a row, Manteno boys soccer lost to Coal City in the sectional championship.
The Panthers’ valiant effort on Oct. 30 fell just short in a 1-0 loss to the Coalers in a Class 1A sectional championship at Manteno.
Manteno split a pair of 2-0 decisions against the Coalers in the regular season this fall, a year after beating Coal City twice in shootouts in the regular season before a 2-1 loss in the sectional.
“We’ve played each other probably like nine times in the last three seasons, and every game has always been decided by one goal or less,” Manteno coach Oscar Farfan said. “Seems like it’s always tough. We knew going into the game, it was going to be tough.
“Chances aren’t going to be coming in high quality in high amounts, but we knew we were going to get a couple. We just unfortunately weren’t able to put them away today, and they put one of their few chances away.”
Coal City finished with five shots on goal, while Manteno got two quality chances.
“We tried to play to win,” junior defender Jesus Alvardo said. “… It just didn’t work for us today.”
Coal City’s Carter Hollis found the back of the net with 2:18 left in the first half. The shot came from just inside the right box, and the ball landed in the left corner of the goal.
“It was a good shot,” Farfan said. “It was a good placement and stuff like that. It’s one of those days where it just feels like the ball is just not going to go in as many times as you shoot it, and unfortunately, we’re on that side of the game.”
Manteno (16-7) battled through the next 42-plus minutes but just couldn’t punch one in the net.
In the second half, Manteno got some quality chances in front of the goal.
Junior midfielder Quinn Campbell got a shot in front of the net, but Coal City goalkeeper Carter Nicholson deflected the ball over the top of the crossbar with about 25 minutes left.
Another opportunity popped with 14:50 left when Nicholson came up outside the box to corral a kick but missed. Manteno freshman Novak Gjorgjevic got his foot on the ball, but missed just left of the net.
Campbell got another chance with 9:57 left, but his shot was just left of the goal. That was the final scoring opportunity for the Panthers.
“With having such a young group, they showed a lot this year and showed the area that next year hopefully we can return all these guys and really make another deep run again,” Farfan said.
“We will work for it next year,” Alvardo said.
The Panthers lost eight seniors to graduation from last year and had no seniors on this season’s squad.
“We start three or four freshmen every game, so that allowed them to get some good experience,” Farfan said. “I’m proud of the group, and I think we left it all out there. And that’s all you can ask for as a coach. Unfortunately, we were just on the wrong side of it today.”