It was a Wednesday night after school, the soccer stands were packed, and the lights were on. The four-seeded Morgan boys varsity soccer team was facing off against the one-seeded Shepaug Valley in the semi-final of the class S state tournament. Both teams received byes in the first round of the tournament and had won convincingly in their previous games.

Shepaug Valley started the game strong, scoring two goals in the first five minutes of the game. Morgan appeared to be flat during those early minutes, and they were not able to stop Shepaug Valley.

 If you were watching the Huskies in those first five minutes, you might have thought it was a preseason game with the energy they had brought to start the game. 

Eventually, the team woke up and was able to hold off Shepaug Valley for the rest of the half, ending it down 0-2. At halftime, after coaches spoke sophomore Esteban Orozco who is one of the team’s leading scorers gave an uplifting speech that helped fire the team up. The team started the second half with way more energy eventually getting onto the scoreboard with their first goal on a break away scored by Johnny Gutierrez.

 “He fired us up,” said sophomore Colton Landino. “We were down 0-2 at halftime, and Esteban told us they want it more than us, that’s all there is to it. [Orozco said] ‘I don’t know if you guys realize, but this could be the senior’s last game if we don’t pick it up.’ Hearing him say that lit a fire under us to start the second half as we tried to start our comeback.”

“I just wanted everyone to play their hearts out,” said Orozco. “The seniors have done so much for us here at Morgan, and I thought the least we could do for them would be to play like our lives depended on it. It might not have been everyone on the team’s last game, but I wanted everyone to play like it would be. We owed it to our seniors.” 

Unfortunately for the Huskies, their momentum from the first goal of the second half did not carry over as Shepaug Valley put one more goal up on the board, making it 1-3. 

Landino said “Shepaug kept coming at us throughout the second half, and we didn’t have the answers. They had control of the ball, and we didn’t really get any more good chances to get another goal.”

The Huskies put up a good fight and made it a solid game, but it was not enough to make the comeback to move on to the Class S State Final. 

The State final was played on another cold, Sunday morning four days after the semi final game. Shepaug Valley faced off against Northwestern. Shepaug Valley was able to beat Northwestern 4-0 making Shepaug Valley the Class S state champion.

Though the Huskies are upset about the loss and the conclusion of their season, it definitely lightens the blow that they lost to the eventual champions of the tournament. 

“Even though we aren’t happy with the loss it helps a little knowing that the team we lost to was the team that one the whole thing” Said Orozco, “If we had beaten them we know we had a really high chance of winning the final game.”