MILWAUKEE – The Green Bay Preble boys soccer team has earned a trip to the WIAA Division 1 state title game three times since 2013.
It just must figure out how to finally win once it gets there.
Preble lost to Middleton 2-0 in the championship match Saturday at Uihlein Soccer Park, one day after it pulled off a magical upset against No. 1 seed Milwaukee Marquette.
Middleton has won back-to-back D1 state championships.
The Hornets were the underdog when they arrived here, the unranked team in a field loaded with what were considered the three best teams in the state in Middleton, Marquette and Brookfield East.
But they showed they belonged despite coming up short. They believed when perhaps nobody else did.
“I mean, there is nothing to really be sad about,” standout senior midfielder Yosef Navarro said. “But at the same time, it’s obviously not what we wanted.
“We worked our ass off. We shocked the world (Friday), beating Marquette 2-1 in double overtime. It’s sad, but we worked, man. We made it happen. We were the underdogs going into this. We couldn’t fully execute the plan, but we worked our ass off.”
Longtime Preble coach Chris Becker said before the tournament that, all these years later, he has thought about the Hornets’ previous title game losses to Muskego in 2013 and Marquette in 2016 at least once a week.
He will have to make room for one more, another match on the final day of the high school soccer season that went the wrong way for his program.
“You always want to know, ‘Could I have made a different decision? Could I have prepared them better?’” Becker said. “I thought these guys have taken coaching so well this year. I thought they stuck to the game plan, but if you look at the goals we gave up, it was height on one and a highlight reel goal on another.”
Preble, which was hoping to become the first local D1 boys soccer team to win a state title since the tournament moved to multiple divisions in 1992, lost a shootout to Muskego and by one goal to Marquette in its first two title game appearances.
Becker wasn’t exaggerating. He described both goals the way anybody watching would have, both impressive shots that somehow went in.
The Cardinals (22-3-1) put immediate pressure on the Hornets (17-4-3), scoring in the second minute off a free kick from Luke Weber that was perfectly placed to teammate Riley Kann.
The 6-foot-4 Kann jumped above a few Preble defenders and headed the ball over the hands of keeper Landin Gauthier for a 1-0 lead.
Weber played a big part in the Cardinals’ run to a state championship, which included scoring one of their two goals in a 2-1 state semifinal win over Brookfield East.
It was the only goal scored by Middleton early on against Preble despite a few close calls, including two shots that went off the crossbar and another off the post in the first 44 minutes.
The Cardinals added an insurance goal in the 61st minute on a spectacular play that started with a few nifty moves from star midfielder Jimmy Murphy, who got the ball to senior midfielder Sawyer FitzRandolph after sending a Preble defender to the ground like a basketball player making an ankle-breaking move.
FitzRandolph blasted a shot from 25 yards out and off the underside of the crossbar, leaving Gauthier almost helpless to attempt a stop.
Middleton outshot Preble 15-5 overall and 5-1 on goal, one day after the Hornets beat Marquette despite being outshot 21-6 overall and 8-4 on goal.
Preble did its best to contain Middleton’s two best offensive players in Murphy and Kann.
Murphy had 20 goals entering sectionals and had a goal and an assist against Brookfield East, but he had only one shot attempt against Preble. Kann was quiet after the early goal, missing his final three attempts.
But Preble never created much momentum after missing an early scoring opportunity and never really established any type of rhythm in the second half.
It was blanked for only the second time this season and the first since a 2-0 loss to Kimberly in the opening match of the year.
It ran into the same problem most teams did when it played the Cardinals. They just don’t give up many goals.
Middleton never allowed more than two goals in any of its 26 matches while posting its 12th shutout.
“Their defense for sure was great,” Navarro said. “On the half of our midfield, I feel like we were dropping back too much trying to support our defense. We were trying to get up to our forwards, they obviously had four, three guys up there. One was always on our striker, our wingers.
“The midfielders, we were just caught too deep trying to support our defense. They were on the attack all the time. Their offense is very good.”
The Hornets will attempt to return here next season after matching Green Bay Notre Dame for the most state appearances of any local team with 11.
There will be some big losses to graduation. It’s highlighted by Navarro, who was the Fox River Classic Conference co-player of the year this season.
They also must replace their top five goal scorers, a list that includes Bogdan Tereshchenko, Edwin Santiago, Alex Willems, Talan LeCaptaine and Jonathan Mendez.
The good news? They welcome back 11 players on their 23-man roster and will have almost their entire defense intact.
Becker started naming all the returning talent one by one afterward.
It’s not too early to be excited. Maybe next year will be the year Preble finally adds a championship trophy to put next to the runner-up ones they have earned.
“I think we are going to be a force to be reckoned with,” Becker said. “We have got some good guys on the bench who probably should have gotten more minutes than they did in the state tournament. … I can’t wait to see how hard they work in the offseason.”
