Opinion by Ray Wolf

Sometimes, people define a team by its last game of the season. Sometimes, that does a great injustice to what the team has accomplished. To let the Weed Cougars’ 3-1 loss to the Fall River Bulldogs last night be the last word on their season would be an injustice. For the record, Fall River caught Weed’s future superstar goalkeeper away from the net twice for goals. The first coming a little under 20 minutes into the match, and the second with just eight minutes or so to play.

In between, Jose Luquin used a free kick to set up Salvador Avila for a header to tie the score at 1-1, less than two minutes after Fall River had scored its first goal. The final Bulldog goal came in the last minute of play on a breakaway, while the Cougars were in an all out effort to tie the match.

One of the significant positives to come out of the match was the high level of support from the community. The crowd may have been the biggest ever for an SCL game in Siskiyou County. It looked more like a football crowd than a soccer crowd. And, when you have a football guy in the announcer’s booth yelling “Goooooooal” when the Cougars’ scored, you know soccer has arrived in Weed.

Another big positive was that the match was hard fought, well played, and well officiated. It was the way high school sports should be.

While the Cougars were very disappointed that they won’t be moving on to the SCL tournament championship game, they should take extreme pride in their season—both the players and first year coach Mike Gilmore.

To use a sports cliché, “They left it all on the field” last night, as they have done all season. This is a team that came into the year with none of the players having won more than one high school soccer game in a season.

That all started to change with a huge upset of powerhouse Tulelake, for their first win of the season, and just the fourth win in three years for the program. The Cougars followed that up with a win over a tough Butte Valley squad–and then the biggie, a win over the rival Mt. Shasta Bears for the first time ever in soccer.

How much did beating the Bears mean to the Cougars? During the senior parent appreciation ceremony, several of the seniors said it was their best high school memory.

In many ways, those three wins alone could have made for a successful season. But, The Cougars weren’t done. They went on to finish with a 9-6 overall record and a 7-3 SCL record for the team’s first ever winning season, as well as a respectable second place finish in the SCL.

Perhaps best of all, they it did as a team. And, they did it with hard work and a great attitude.

To seniors Jose Luquin, Omar Fernandez, Lori Garcia, Jonny Conner, Casey Wideman, and Nick Guasted, thanks for an exciting season and congratulations on finishing your high school soccer career as winners.

To the rest of the team and coach Gilmore, see you next year as you compete for an SCL title.