After a starting the season with a 4-2 record, the Manhattan High soccer team faced arguably its toughest challenge of the season facing three opponents in just five days. The series of games included a match against Seaman away from home, nationally ranked Washburn Rural right after and finally a long mid-week trip to Great Bend to finish.

The Indians kicked off their series with a 2-1 victory at Seaman breaking their streak of two straight losses that came to the hands of Shawnee Heights and St. Thomas Aquinas. Next up was nationally ranked Washburn, a team that is recognized nationwide.

The game kicked off to a 1-0 start by Washburn Rural, coming in the way of a header off a free kick. The game would intensify quickly as MHS battled back from a 3-0 deficit late in the second half. Two late goals would give them hope to take the game into overtime, the second goal scored by senior forward Kirkland Lambert. With less than a minute to go MHS had their final chance when they awarded a free kick at the edge of the box. With everything on the line, MHS failed to scored on the kick sparking a Washburn counter-attack that was the final blow. Manhattan lost the game 4-2 and dropped to 5-3.

“At the beginning we didn’t come out like we were supposed to, you know, we talked about intensity and coming in the game hard and when the game started we just freaked out and it seemed like no one knew what to do and that shouldn’t happen,” Varsity defender Conall Root said.

Washburn and MHS traded many fouls even to the point where yellow cards had to be pulled out.

“It was rough, we didn’t start off very well. We got bullied. I mean the ball was in the air for a quite a while and we’re a possession team, we’re better than we showed tonight,”  assistant varsity coach Mike Lopez said.

The next challenge for Manhattan would be a long mid-week trip to Great Bend in which they would look to end their bad form. The Indians rose up to the occasion as they blew Great Bend High out in a 10-1 victory. They followed that with a home victory against Wichita South High in which they scored five goals and kept Wichita scoreless.

“The first half we did bad, in the second half we picked it up possession wise and also with shots and goals,” Varsity forward Angel Fraire said. Finally MHS completed their three-game win streak with another win at home against Emporia High.

“[For the upcoming games] we’re going to have to give a solid performance to win and later we have the quad coming up which is pretty important too,” junior Saubhagya Shrestha said.

MHS will take the field again when they travel to Hayden today to play against Hayden.