Lakewood Ranch soccer follows a long, tough road to the state semifinals

Lakewood Ranch High didn’t think it’d be here right now.

When the Mustangs lost their Class 7A-District 8 tournament semifinal against Riverview High this month, they thought their season was over. But a rule change implemented this school year helped them go from eliminated to Saturday’s 5 p.m. state semifinal at Orlando Boone High.

Until last season, teams that made the district finals were guaranteed a spot in the regional tournament. Now, the eight district championship game winners and eight at-large teams, as determined by a formula that includes strength of schedule, advance to each regional tournament. Because of their strength of schedule, the Mustangs were one of those at-large teams.

“We’re just taking it one day at a time and one game at a time and just saying, ‘Thank God we have a second chance,’” Mustangs coach Vito Bavaro said. “It’s great. Next year, I may have a different tone about it, but for this year, it worked out great. It’s truly a Cinderella story.”

Extended postseason runs aren’t anything new for the Mustangs, who made the state semifinals last season and have now made the state semifinals in three of the past four seasons.

But they had to overcome a significant hurdle to win three consecutive regional tournament games to advance this far: being the No. 7 seed, which has forced them to play on the road.

“Playing at home is ideal, especially for important games such as regionals, because of the fact that we are used to our field and know our way around it,” Mustangs senior midfielder/forward Jacob Jordan said. “It hasn’t been easy playing on the road for the entirety of the regional games, but I think after the (regional) quarterfinals, we got comfortable playing away.

“With the mentality we have now after getting a second chance and realizing how much it hurt to lose, a two-hour drive or however long the trip is isn’t going to stop us or affect how we play.”

The district semifinal loss has provided motivation during their run.

Although the Mustangs were without several of their starters because of injury or illness in the loss, the team was upset that its streak of seven consecutive district championship titles was over.

“After the loss in the district semifinals, many of our players were crushed, especially for losing such a long streak of district championships,” Mustangs senior defender Anthony Sablan said. “The big reason we’ve been so successful is the loss in districts was a reality check for our team. To keep playing was seen as a second chance to redeem ourselves after the loss.”

The Mustangs (19-5-1) responded by playing what Bavaro calls perhaps their best defense of the season in the regional tournament, posting three consecutive shutouts.

Another good defensive performance will come in handy Saturday. Boone (15-3-2), which has averaged 2.7 goals per game, has two players who have scored at least 15 goals and two players who have at least 11 assists.

“Throughout the season, our defense and goalie have been very strong and clutch,” Jordan said. “In the last three games, they’ve just put even more effort in and played really hard in an attempt to not repeat what happened in the district semifinals.

“It’s not often you get second chances like this. The whole team realized that we had to make something out of it. We really wanted to win, and after each game, we have gotten even more motivated to keep going further and further.”

This story was originally published February 21, 2020 at 1:30 PM.