NEW HOPE — There was seemingly a glimmer of hope for New Hope boys soccer on Tuesday night.
Taking on Lafayette in the MHSAA Class 5A state semifinals, the Trojans found themselves down 2-1 with less than 10 minutes left in regulation.
A perfect strike from senior Jack Oswalt into the top right corner of the net cut the deficit in half for New Hope, but it needed an equalizer badly. Its closest chance came off a corner, with a header that went just wide, to the left of the net.
The Trojans were pushing to score while all the Commodores needed to do was survive, and survive they did, sealing a trip to the state title game with a last-minute goal for a 3-1 victory.
“We had our opportunities,” New Hope head coach Andrew Olsen said. “We missed a couple goals. We let them get the goal in the end as time expired, but I’m proud of how they played.”
In the most important match of the season, New Hope (12-6-2) came out sluggish against a familiar foe in Lafayette, a team it had played twice previously this season.
Those prior two matchups ended in a tight 1-0 victory and a close 2-1 loss, so beating the Commodores twice was going to be a tall task. Going into halftime down 2-0 on Tuesday made that task nearly impossible.
“I told the guys at halftime, we played them twice this year,” Olsen said. “We know what they’re trying to do, so in that second half, we just tried to pick up the pace and hold possession more.”
A wacky deflection off a direct free kick from just outside the box and a careless mistake in the box, leading to a penalty, allowed Lafayette to storm ahead on the road, leaving Trojan fans in shock.
Luckily, Oswalt’s goal in the 65th minute gave New Hope plenty to celebrate.
“It just felt good when I hit it,” Oswalt said. “I thought we could squeeze another one out, but it just didn’t happen like we wanted to.”
The second half fared much differently for the Trojans despite conceding that last-minute goal to make it a two-goal difference in the end.
New Hope was much more of the aggressor, finding space to drive the ball down the field and get balls into the box.
Lafayette’s back line didn’t allow much penetration overall, but where chances were minimal in the first half, they were plentiful in the second half. Unfortunately for New Hope, it came up a chance too short, playing from behind for nearly 70 minutes of game time.
“I felt like we were flat-footed in the first half and we just decided to turn it on in the second half, but it was too late by then,” Oswalt said.
New Hope is no stranger to reaching state semifinals, but getting to a state championship has been much more difficult. The Trojans came up just short of that goal, but Olsen and his program feel confident about who and what is coming back to run it back.
“I thought they gave 100 percent effort the whole way through,” Olsen said. “Nothing to hang your head about. … This is something that the young guys can build off of and we’ll just have to push forward to next year.”
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