By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
As the announcer counted down to zero, Neosho coach James Carter took off running down the sideline, circled back and joined his team for a raucous celebration on the field.
The Wildcats won their third-straight district championship in boys soccer Wednesday night, beating Webb City 1-0 in the Class 3 District 12 finals on a rainy night in Carl Junction.
“I couldn’t help myself,” Carter said. “I can’t remember if I did that last year but I’ve done this once so I knew this year I had to get in the middle of that. I love those guys, they’re amazing. It’s just all about them. They did a great job.”
Wednesday marked the third time the teams have played this season after they split the first two. And it was the third-straight year the Wildcats have beaten the Cardinals in the district championship.
Carter heaped all the credit on his players.
“That’s three in a row for us so that’s a big deal but I’ve got great players, really good guys, and they can play and they played their butts off,” he said. “They earned it.”
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE GAME
Neosho, which finished with a 14-3 advantage in shots, was the aggressor most of the first half. The Wildcats missed on several scoring opportunities, though. Webb City goalie Alexander Gooch made a diving stop to his left in the seventh minute and a leaping deflection in the 31st. Neosho also came up empty on an indirect free kick right in front of the goal in the 32nd minute.
The Wildcats broke the stalemate in the 34th minute off a corner kick by sophomore Yeison Vasquez when junior Diego Vargas cleaned up a deflection and scored on the left side.
“Yeison did a good job,” Carter said. “He was on our side so we talked about just hitting it in low and hard. On a night like tonight the ball’s skipping a little bit and our guys were just hungry for it. They put it away.”
Neosho played more defensively after the break as Webb City grew increasingly frantic in search of a goal of its own.
“They were trying to press to get a goal but our guys know how to close games out like that and they did a good job,” Carter said.
The teams sat threw a 30-minute lightning delay in the 60th minute.
Webb City coach Nick Harmon said he thought the game could have gone either way and credited Neosho for being more composed during critical moments of the game.
“It was two good teams battling it out,” he said. “It was a lot of fun.”
He said Webb City played a better game and knocked Neosho off its game when the Cardinals won 3-0 against Neosho in September.
“In this game they did a good job of knocking us off our game in the middle of it,” he said. “We did a really good job to hang in there after giving up the goal and creating a lot of chances late in the game but just couldn’t find the net.”
The Cardinals finish the year with a 17 -10 record. Neosho improved to 14-7, already a one-win improvement on last season’s total.
Now the Wildcats will face either Parkview or Willard on Nov. 12 in the sectional round. Neosho beat Parkview for the school’s first-ever sectional victory last season before losing in the quarterfinals against Glendale.
