Agony and ecstasy.
No other words seem apt enough to describe the scenes after 90 minutes of hard fought soccer in the 2017 SLIAC conference championship game.
The Principia College Panthers, making their first conference championship appearance since 2007, fell to the Westminster College Blue Jays by a final score of 2-1 in a tightly contested battle. Westminster opened the score just 6 minutes into the game before tacking on another goal 19 minutes into the second half to double the lead. Principia pulled back within 1 on a Kaleb Keller penalty kick with 10 minutes left in the game but the storybook ending just wasn't meant to be tonight.
In a battle between history and destiny, history won out in the end and Westminster now have won 4 consecutive SLIAC men's soccer championships. After the final whistle, the Blue Jays erupted into ecstatic celebrations while Principia were left in agony to rue what could have been.
The first half started out with Westminster on the front foot, putting away an early free kick goal courtesy of senior midfielder Mauricio Mateo. Principia then spent nearly the rest of the half pinning the Blue Jays back in their own end but were unable to break through.
The Panthers controlled possession, fired 8 shots and had 6 corner kick opportunities in the first half but just couldn't find a way past Westminster goalkeeper Connor Brandre. The closest chance of the half came on a gorgeous Kaleb Keller free kick that clanged off the crossbar before ricocheting out of the penalty box.
The second half started out evenly, with Westminster maybe getting a little bit better of the Panthers, but neither team was willing to budge. The Blue Jays breakthrough came on a harmless looking, inadvertent re-direction back towards PC goalie Matt Jones. Unluckily, the ball took a funny hop on Jones, allowing Blue Jays' attacker Brent Lampen to pounce and score into a yawning, unoccupied net.
That moment in the game was pivotal and left Principia with two options. Either admit defeat, crawl into a ball and whine about things not going the way they were supposed to, or fight back.
I bet you can guess which option the Panthers chose.
Principia came out with everything they had after that second Westminster goal, pushing forward with ferocity and creating quality chances for the final 25 minutes of the game. The Panthers started pressing high up the field and were able to create goal-scoring opportunities with their creativity and athleticism.
The breakthrough came after a wild sequence in the box ended with Cameron Sellers being tripped up by Brandre to give Principia a penalty kick. Kaleb Keller and his school record 17 goals this season calmly stepped up to the mark and thundered home a left footed strike straight through the heart of the net.
Principia finished the game with a fury but were unable to come up with the equalizing goal. The last chance of the game came on a corner kick with 12 seconds remaining, but it was coolly headed away by Westminster center back Blake Hausman to seal the Blue Jays' victory and their 4th straight title.
Maybe someday later on, there will be a time where we can properly analyze tonight's game and see just what went wrong for Principia and where they came up short. But tonight is not the time to sulk about a losing effort; tonight should be a celebration of the entire season because what a tremendous year it was.
From starting 1-6 to within 1 goal of a conference championship, the 2017 Principia College men's soccer season will not be soon forgotten and the fight shown by the team after going down 2-0 serves as a microcosm of the season as a whole.
"We're a fighting team that has a lot of grit," junior defender David McLeod-Warrick told me after the game. "Each and every single one of us is a fighter. We fought hard tonight and, even with the loss, nobody can take that away from us."
Senior captain Briggs Hurley also harped on that point after the game to me as well, saying, "We never put our heads down after that second goal. We've come from behind multiple times this season and had that confidence in ourselves. The amount of set pieces in the second half are a testament to our pressure going forward."
In front of the largest home crowd I've ever seen at a Principia soccer event - official attendance was listed as 300, but that seems like a significant underestimate - the Panthers displayed the kind of heart and determination that has become customary of them all season long.
And that loud crowd pushed them forward, as McLeod-Warrick also noted, saying, "It helped a lot. We love the fans, loved the turnout and love to give back to this school. It's crazy that we can bring a community together like this and it pumps me up that we were able to do that. There were people with their shirts off and body painted…it was insane."
The scenes at the game tonight were absolutely incredible and speak to McLeod's thought about the men's soccer team bringing the community together. All kinds of different people were at the game tonight, from Principia upper schoolers coming down from the St. Louis campus to College President Dr. Jonathan Palmer, it seemed like everyone needed to be at tonight's game.
Which brings up the much bigger point of how much this program has grown in a very short period of time. Just last year, Principia won 5 games overall, finishing 2-7 in conference and only winning 2 games at home, low lighted by a porous 3-2 defeat to Eureka on senior day.
Watching tonight's game while knowing the disaster that had unfolded in 2016 only made the event more special. "It meant everything to be able to play in this game," Briggs Hurley told me.
"I've been through everything at Prin. As a freshman, I was selfish and didn't understand what it meant to fight for a team and school. To have been here tonight is the end of a huge journey for me," Hurley continued.
"I love this school and playing soccer here has been an absolute pleasure. The end result is a tough pill to swallow, but I'm so grateful for every moment this season."
Entering next year, Principia only loses 2 starters and plenty of reason for optimism because, as McLeod-Warrick outlined to me, "We have nowhere to go but up."
Someday, we'll all be able to sit back and enjoy the storybook season that Principia College men's soccer has put together in 2017. The fairytale ending wasn't meant to be, but that doesn't diminish the rest of the book.
What a story it was.
