Summit boys soccer coach David McDonald wasn’t concerned with winning a district title before the season started — he just wanted to be a playoff team.
He had good reasoning, with District 16-4A being one of the more loaded Class 4A districts in the area. With the additions of Legacy, Lake Ridge and the always-strong Burleson Centennial and Crowley schools, McDonald knew making the playoffs would be a good enough goal.That all changed when Summit met Centennial for the first time in district earlier this season. Summit handed Centennial its only district loss of the year, winning 4-1. Now the Jaguars are in second place, right on the heels of Centennial for the district crown.McDonald said it was that win against Centennial that changed the outlook for his team from just hoping to make the playoffs to believing it was a playoff team.“They felt like we’re not good enough and we were down a little bit this year,” McDonald said. “With so many new guys, they thought, can we really do this? After winning that game, it was a wake-up call. It set our sights higher.”Summit’s journey from playoff-hopeful to district title contender is built on the Jaguars defense. Summit has the best goals-against average in the district, better than even Centennials’.That defense has helped what is a somewhat inexperienced Jaguars team. Summit has 14 seniors but almost all of them were on the junior varsity last season.McDonald said it took the team a little bit to get used to the speed of the varsity game.“It’s taken them this far to understand the speed of the game and the physicality of the game,” McDonald said. “They beat the crud out of teams on [junior varsity]. They were beating teams 8-0, 9-0 and they don’t get pushed that hard.“The varsity games are much more intense and they struggle a bit with the speed of the game.”The team appears to be learning. After tying Crowley when the two teams first met in district, Summit won 3-0 in the Jaguars second match-up. It was a sign that the team is progressing and getting better to make a playoff run.A lot of that success has to do with senior midfielder Logan Lowrey. Lowrey doesn’t score all the goals or rack up all the assists, but McDonald said he’s key in moving the ball and setting the team up for those scoring situations.“He’s not scoring a lot of goals but he creates and starts a lot of stuff that leads to goals,” McDonald said. “He’s done really well there.”Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
