College Station out to make more history against Prosper Walnut Grove
The College Station boys soccer team already has made plenty of history en route to Georgetown, and the Cougars want to keep it going.
College Station had never made it past the fourth round of the playoffs until two weeks ago with a 3-2 win over Spring Woods in the Class 5A Division I regional finals. In fact, that was just the school's second appearance in the regional finals.
The history-making season continued last Friday with a 1-0 win over Southwest Legacy in the state semifinals.
Now, College Station will look to bring home its first state title in soccer when the Cougars face defending state champ and unbeaten Prosper Walnut Grove at 1:30 p.m. Friday at Birkelbach Field.
"A dream," College Station sophomore midfielder Tomas Dominguez said of getting here. "Every day I tell my parents it really does not feel real to be in the position that I'm in right now. Going out there and still playing in April. It really doesn't feel real sometimes, but I mean when you step on the field and you go practice, it doesn't matter if you feel it's real or not, it doesn't matter whether you're ready or not, you have to step up and do your job. And that's what I think every single guy on our team has done."
The Cougars (16-7-4) earned the fourth and final playoff spot in District 17-5A by winning five of their six games in the second half of district play. College Station finished 6-3-3 in district and went in as the 5A-I runner-up in the playoffs.
College Station's strong finish in district carried over into the playoffs. The Cougars have racked up wins over Porter (3-1), Angleton (3-1 on penalty kicks after 1-1 draw) and Victoria West (2-0) along with later wins over Spring Woods and Southwest Legacy.
Prosper Walnut Grove head coach Trent Kutch says players such as leading-goal scorer Vicente Paredes, workhorses in Dominguez and Ramon Ross and midfield anchors Jacob Lopez and Samuel He have stood out to him when looking at the Cougars.
"Everybody talks about their defense and so that's been one of the challenging parts," Kutch said. "The [bright] side is they haven't been tested much really on that backline, so obviously that's props to them. So, it's kind of hard to see how to break them down."
The Wildcats (30-0) returned to the big stage with wins over Lufkin (2-1), Heritage (2-1), Midlothian (3-0), Adams (5-4 on PKs after a 2-2 draw) and Americas (1-0).
The team's winning ways are what stands out to College Station head coach Chad Peevey.
"Well, they haven't lost in two years, so that's probably the biggest one," Peevey said. "It doesn't matter if you win by eight goals or one goal, it's really hard to win soccer games, it's really hard to win in the playoffs. And so, they're a group that's consistently found a way to win whether they're dominating or - I don't want to call it lucky, but they're finding a way to just make it happen - and that's kind of part of it and that's what makes them so tough."
The Wildcats aren't a veteran group though as Kutch says his team was completely new this year.
Prosper Walnut Grove returned just two starters in senior goalkeeper Quinn Shelton and senior midfielder Mason Kutch. They were joined by two other returners who came off the bench while the rest of the team was on JV a year ago.
Mason was named Texas' Gatorade player of the year as a junior and is committed to DePaul.
Coach Kutch says his job was to figure out what his team's identity was going to be and then put the pieces together, which he says they have done and it's led to a successful season.
The Cougars know how good the Wildcats are but aren't afraid of the challenge.
"If we're there it's for a reason, it's not for us to just be like 'Oh, OK, they're just undefeated, let's give up,'" Dominguez said. "We're going to give the best fight they ever had in the entire season and [we're] going to bring it home. That's what we want and that's what we're fighting for."
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