The 2022-2023 Varsity soccer season came to a close last week with matches against Memorial High School (#2 in District) and Jersey Village High School.

vs. Memorial

SHS played the road underdog Tuesday night with the Mustangs, who currently sit at #2 in the District behind Cy Ridge. SHS and MHS tied in the first game earlier in the season with some last-minute heroics by the Spartans to tie up the game in the last three minutes.

The Spartans came out strong with several early attacks on goal. In the 5th, 8th and 10th minutes, SHS mounted strong attacks with multiple shots by Yuto Komiya, Fabu Ndayishimiye, and Brian Leon. Our defense kept the Mustangs at bay, with strong defensive plays by Zayn Tippitt and Adrian Estrada, and did not allow even a shot until the 15th minute, which was saved by Juan Ugalde.

The Mustangs began to get some rhythm later on in the first half with quick attacks in the 22nd and 28th minutes, but they were aptly saved by Juan and blocked out by Zakir Ashford, respectively.

In the 30th minute, Fabu made a nice run and passed one Mustang midfielder and one defender, took the shot hard and high, but the Memorial keeper tipped it out of the goal. Hanno Waguespack took the ensuing corner and nicely centered it to Jacob Smith, who headed it just off the cross bar out of bounds.

The Spartans controlled the first half, but just couldn’t get on the board.

Halftime 0-0

In the second half, SHS continued to pound the goal and generally put together some nice plays all over the field, including various set pieces that were taken by Zayn, Jasper Hartman, and Adrian, but the Spartans still could not get their shots in the back of the net.

In the 70th minute, the Mustangs got really lucky on a long set piece which went untouched into the goal, to put Memorial up 1-0.

SHS had plenty of opportunities to equalize, with late shots from Jerry Garcia Gil and Hanno Waguespack.

Unfortunately, the Spartans were not able to equalize and fell to the Mustangs 1-0. Not the result we wanted, but it was obvious that SHS can play with the best of them, creating more scoring opportunities throughout the game than our rival.

vs. Jersey Village

Friday night, the Spartans hosted Jersey Village for Senior Night at our first home game at Stratford Stadium since it was closed for track renovations. And our Seniors took the field for one last time, with the hopes to go out with a win.

The Spartans came out fighting with early shots on goal by Jasper Hartman and Yuto Komiya.

In the 13th minute, on a long pass from Rudolfo Moncada, Boniface Byshimo took the ball toward center left, then crossed right to Giancarlo Chelala, who took a hard shot that was just high of the cross bar.

Jersey Village had their moments in the first half, which were few and far between, but well-defended by Zayn Tippitt and Zakir Ashford. There were several moments when the Jersey Village forwards started to mount an attack, but were thwarted by good positioning and quick thinking by the Stratford defenders, including Adrian Estrada and goalie Juan Ugalde. Juan came out and swept away several long balls from Jersey Village to snuff out the attack before they could even get off a shot.

Then in the 35th minute, Jersey Village mounted an attack and got a quick goal, just before halftime to go up 1-0. For as many shots that the Spartans could take, we still ended the first half without a goal.

Halftime: 1-0, Jersey Village

In the second half, Stratford came out a bit flat and gave up some easy long balls that could have resulted in quick goals. Something seemed to have been lost after halftime. The Spartans were having a hard time to organize any offense, which led to another Jersey Village goal in the 58th minute. Jersey Village goes up 2-0.

For the next several minutes, the Spartans were re-organizing and made several changes to the lineup.

Finally, with three minutes remaining and all the seniors on the field, SHS managed to get the ball up to Jasper, who had one defender on him and took a clean shot to pass the keeper for the Spartan’s first goal of the game, 2-1.

Jasper himself quickly grabbed the ball from the net and took it to midfield to start again. The Spartans front line attacked the ball and created too much pressure for Jersey Village. With 1:30 left to play, Jacob Smith took the ball up the right sideline, passing two defenders and shot the ball long and high, bouncing from the cross bar back into play, where Yuto was waiting for a confident volley into the goal! 2-2, the Spartans had equalized with time left to go for the win.

Once again, Stratford hurried the ball back to midfield to make one last effort and pressured the ball to create a turnover. With 40 seconds left, Yuto took control of the ball about 40 yards out on the left side of center, put a long through-ball to Jacob, who had beaten the defense and was closing on the ball from the right side, and with a leaping volley, puts the ball to the left of the keeper and in the back of the net, putting the Spartans up 3-2 as the clock ticked down to 0!

It was an incredible finish to the season and especially for these seniors that made an unbelievable effort to go out on top!

Though we didn’t make the playoffs, these Spartan boys have fought hard and always kept the team within reach of a win in every game. Thanks to all Spartan USA for your support.