The boys Varsity soccer team finished fifth place in the Wichita Titan Tournament, which concluded on Saturday with a win against Maize.

They started out the tournament on Monday with a loss on penalties to Derby High.

“[The first game] was on Monday when all the flooding was happening and so people were late to get to the bus,” said Max Lansdowne, starting forward. “We were late to show up to the game and we were all just kind of worried about that.”

Because of a miscommunication between right back Brendan Mummert and goalie Masson Garren, Garren came out and clipped the Derby attacker, resulting in a free kick on the edge of the box. Garren’s sight was blocked by the wall and the Derby player shot it right into the net.

In the second half MHS scored off a penalty. Evening the score 1-1.

Despite a few more good chances at the end of the ninety minutes the score remained 1-1. Normally the game would go to overtime; however, to avoid delaying other games it was decided that it was to go straight to penalties which MHS lost to Derby 2-4.

“Personally, I would have prefered extra time but I think I speak on behalf of the team for that because in the last 20 minutes we were dominating Derby,” said Mitch Hutchinson, center forward. “We just couldn’t find that goal, and I think that had we had that extra 20 minutes we would have found our winning goal.”

The next game was against Wichita East High and took place on Thursday at 4 p.m. at Wichita Northwest. Cole Schmitt scored in the first half when Hutchinson made a pass to Carter Wiens who dodged a few defenders and made a shot on goal. It was fumbled by the goalie and fell right into the middle of the box where Schmitt was waiting to slot it into the left side, the lone goal for the game ending 1-0.

The final match of the tournament was against Maize at Wichita South.

The first goal was scored by Lansdowne around halfway through the first half. Cole Herpich played a long ball down the field. There was a scramble for the ball that was won by Hutchinson who played it through to Lansdowne who juked a defender and put it in the back of the net to make it 1-0.

Just minutes later Hunter French passed a ball through to Schmitt who finished it to make it 2-0. In the second half Maize scored to make it 2-1, back in the game with only a goal to go for a tie. MHS’s defence stayed strong and Roberto Maysonet Perez tapped one in from a corner taken by Schmitt to make the final 3-1.

“It puts experience on a lot of players very quickly. There are some hard lessons to be learned, you learn about bus travel, you learn to be sure to take care of you homework on a busy week, you learn the comforts of being at home instead of on a bus, you learn how to play on the road and you learn how to play against good competition,” said head coach Frank Alonso. “We have a lot of players that are new to varsity, so it was a big learning curve for them.”