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By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
It was a familiar sight: Monett soccer players hoisting a district championship plaque while Logan-Rogersville’s team gathered quietly in a far corner.
It played out for the fourth time in five years Thursday night in Aurora as the Cubs shook off a halftime deficit to win 3-2 in the Class 2 District 4 finals – Monett’s ninth straight district championship.
“Great feeling,” Monett coach Cristobal Villa said. “Gosh, those kids make us suffer but we got the win and we take nothing for granted. We worked so hard, so hard and we faced a great team, a great opponent. In my mind as a coach I knew whoever won tonight was going to go represent us well at the state playoffs. Fortunate enough it was us but it was a great game tonight.”
The Cubs seized momentum and the lead in a span of less than three minutes early in the second half.
A Rogersville goal in the 34th minute had given the Wildcats the early advantage, but Monett tied things up in the 42nd when senior Jonathan Perez Mejia corralled a long ball in the box and sent it into the back of the net. Senior Da Win earned the assist.
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Two minutes and forty-two seconds later Monett sophomore Roberto Perez, Jr. scored with a shot off the left foot with an assist by senior Jony Perez. The Cubs never relinquished the lead.
“We talked at half and I told the boys, first half is over. It’s done and now it’s what we can do second half,” Villa said. “We have to be the second half team if we want to win tonight. Finding that first goal, it was huge. It was momentum and you’ve got to have that. Soccer is about momentum and we had that and we scored the second goal right off that.”
“Usually after a goal is scored it’s a pretty dangerous time,” Rogersville coach Brett Wubbena said. “You’ve just got to hold your ground. We did whenever we scored. Half is another time, whenever you come out you just have one team that’s really raring to go and they got two. One was a little lucky but we couldn’t stop it. And that kind of changed the momentum a little bit and then a couple minutes later they got that second one.”
Tempers flared in the 55th minute and a fight broke out in front of the spectators sitting across the field from the Rogersville bench. That resulted in a red card for each team.
Less than a minute later Monett made it a 3-1 game when senior Alejandro Garcia knocked in a header over the keeper with an assist by senior Eduardo Trujillo.
“There’s a lot of passion out there between the two,” Wubbena said of the scuffle. “We play each other during the season. I think four of the last five years we’ve been in the championship game with Monett. The fight breaks out, it wasn’t because of what happened tonight in the game. It was a buildup from all of that other stuff. It’s not that we don’t like each other it’s just that they’re tough games. You don’t like to see the fight but you like to see the passion.”
Rogersville made things interesting late with a goal in the 74th minute by junior Sage Ballard on a broken play. Ballard also scored the Wildcats’ first goal.
Monett was able to run the clock out, though, after that.
Rogersville, which was the top seed in the district, fell to 18-6 with the loss. The Wildcats had defeated Monett 1-0 on October 6.
Second seed Monett improved to 16-7 and will face 10-3 MICDS on November 10 in the quarterfinals.
Villa said the Cubs dedicated Thursday’s game – originally scheduled for Wednesday – to Monett superintendent Russ Moreland and his family. Moreland died unexpectedly on Tuesday.
“We have sadness in our hearts because of the situation,” Villa said. “We’re going to miss Mr. Moreland. Great guy, always helping people, helping kids, helping staff. We’re going to miss him a lot and we played hard tonight for him. We dedicated this to him and his family. We’re going to continue playing hard for him. We’re going to get back to work but it’s hard, it’s very hard.”
