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Crimson Bears boys soccer team saves season
- Klas Stolpe
- 5 minutes ago
- 6 min read
Mazon goal, team defense earn JDHS pitch passage to state
By Klas Stolpe
Juneau Independent
Facing elimination from the automatic qualification into the state soccer championships, the Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé Crimson Bears boys needed a win in their last Railbelt Conference road game at Wasilla on Saturday.
JDHS junior Sam Mazon found the space for the game’s lone goal with roughly five minutes to play, and the Crimson Bears defeated host Wasilla 1-0 to earn third place and the conference’s final berth into the state tournament May 28-30, which will be hosted by Matanuska-Susitna Valley schools Colony, Palmer and Wasilla.
“We were five minutes from going into RPI madness,” JDHS coach Gary Lehnhart said, referring to a team’s strength of schedule as a deciding factor to earn the state tournament. “You know, one of those things where we would have gone down to the last second figuring out whether we could qualify for state or not. It was nice to put that aside, but we saved it until the last five minutes.”
JDHS had fallen to fourth place with a 2-1 loss to Wasilla on Friday, and the Warriors moved up to third. The Crimson Bears had defeated Division II Northern Lights Conference Palmer 3-2 on Thursday as part of a three-game road trip.
Mazon’s goal Saturday was assisted by freshman Karter Barzee.
“He (Barzee) served a nice ball in, and Sam flipped it on,” Lehnhart said. “Both days we had good chances and we have just had so much trouble. We keep hitting the bar, hitting the post, shooting it wide. After day one, we had felt we had let one get away, so we put the whole season down to — really, on one game. And this is a young team. I am playing five freshmen and four sophomores out of a rotation of 16 guys. I have never done that before.”
Injuries have played a part, with junior Maddox Carroll out indefinitely, senior Jesper Bennetsen playing hurt, and a concussion and hamstring rending two more players off the pitch last weekend. Junior keeper Calvin Landvik suffered a couple collisions through the year in the box and sophomore scoring threat Troy Edgar did not play against Wasilla due to hamstring tenderness.
Carroll is an important part for the JDHS state run and may return. Bennetsen has slowly increased his minutes to bring stability to the defense and senior Emmett Mesdag, who has been out this season, will get the green light for this weekend.
“So we have been playing freshmen in those spots at times,” Lehnhart said. “And they are doing great, but we are asking so much of those guys to play against players that are all-state athletes. That is a lot for a young kid to try and figure out. All in all, I was pleased with the way we persevered.”
According to statistics provided by JDHS, Mazon had five shots, three on goal. Freshman Elijah Edgar had two shots on goal. Sophomore Bryce Haygood had one shot on goal and Barzee one shot. Sophomore keeper Callen Walker played all 80 minutes and had nine saves.
“Callen had a very good game,” Lehnhart said. “Wasilla’s game was to play it long and make him play on top of the ball, and he was up to it. And Jesper played almost back to his normal self. And then we had the surprise player of the game. I decided with about 20 minutes to go that we needed to find something because we were just struggling to create chances. I had watched the JV game and saw Tanner Schultz had a good JV game and thought, ‘I am going to give him a chance.’ And I plugged him in there.”
Schultz, another freshman, the smallest guy on the field, battled, and according to Lehnhart, “He was the guy that turned the game. He kind of got our offense going a little bit, gave us different looks, and held his own against a really experienced kid from Wasilla. What he was really able to do was put some purpose in our offense and help put people in places. He was giving a lot of what you would call ‘hockey assists,’ where he is playing the ball to the guy that is then playing the dangerous ball. That is what we were missing.”
For the first time, Lehnhart awarded co-Lunch Box honors, one to Walker and one to Schultz.
It was Schultz who played a ball out of the middle of the field to Barzee, who played it on to Mazon for the scoring strike from the right side of the goal. Mazon and sophomore Bryce Haygood had good luck on the day with that movement.
“But we couldn’t seem to get on the end of either one of their services,” Lehnhart said. “So this one Carter gave the service and Sam got on the end of it. Yeah, good celebration. He was pretty excited. All the kids were excited... Freshman Imanol (freshman Imanol Vera) was the player I had put Schultz in for and he was excited for him, and I like that, when players are rooting for each other.”
Haygood played 80 minutes and had three corner kicks and one steal. Senior Jesper Bennetsen played 80 minutes and earned six steals, Barzee 80 minutes (2 STLS), Mazon 80 (2 STLS), senior Elliot Welch 70 (3 STLS), junior Ethan Van Kirk 65 (3 STLS), senior Kevin Flores-Lopez 60, junior Ibrahima Diouf 55 (4 STLS), senior Noah Ault 55 (1 STL), freshman Tanner Schultz 30 (3 STLS), freshman Andrew Koverdan 30 (2 STLS), junior Atagan Hood 30 (1 STL), E. Edgar 30, junior Erik Thompson 20 (1 STL) and sophomore Cohen Odenheimer 5.
Lehnhart said the Crimson Bears had never had an elimination-type game outside the state tournament setting, so Saturday was a lot of pressure.
“We had never been in an all-or-nothing situation,” he said. “It wasn’t quite that, but it was pretty close. Normally for us, those are reserved for the state tournament, which is just a completely different pie. So to have one in the regular season for such a young, inexperienced team was kind of a big deal.”
The top three teams from the RBC and the top four from the Cook Inlet Conference and one at-large berth qualify for state.
The JDHS boys improve to 3-5 in the RBC (6-5-1 overall) and play a final home non-conference friendly series against CIC’s third-place South Anchorage this weekend. The JDHS girls play at 5:15 p.m. and the boys at 7:30 p.m. Friday. The Crimson Bears boys senior night will be between the two games at 7 p.m.
“We are both in the same RPI range,” Lehnhart said. “So there is that piece. It could be a seeding game. I don’t buy into that ‘since we qualified for state, we will rest players.’ These kids get so few high school games in their lives to play in front of their family. If they are healthy, we will let them play. Let them enjoy it… we will play to win for sure. These games count.”
Saturday game times against South are 11 a.m. for the girls and 1 p.m. for the boys. The Crimson Bears will also send a JV-varsity mix team to Ketchikan this Wednesday as the Kings lost their senior night opponent.
The Warriors fall to fourth place with a 2-5-1 record in the RBC (5-9-2 overall). Current RPI rankings that seed the seven state qualifiers and the at-large berth one through eight show Wasilla outside the standings in ninth place.
RBC qualifiers are West Valley 8-0 (9-1 overall), Colony 5-2-1 (9-3-1 overall) and JDHS. The season ends for Wasilla and Lathrop 1-7 (2-7 overall).
CIC qualifiers are Dimond 12-0-1 (14-0-1 overall), West Anchorage 9-2-1 (13-2-1 overall), South 8-5 (10-5 overall) and Chugiak 6-4-1 (7-6-3 overall). Service currently has the state’s eighth-highest RPI and is 6-6-1 CIC (7-6-1 overall). East 4-7-2, Eagle River 1-10 and Bartlett 0-12 are out of contention.
• Contact Klas Stolpe at sports@juneauindependent.com
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