PERRYSBURG – The last thing any team needs when facing an dangerous opponent loaded with talent is being forced to play without its best defender.
Unfortunately, that is just the scenario the Little Giant soccer program found itself in facing Perrysburg in the opening round of the district tournament Thursday.
A red card to junior defender Mason DeWalt for purposefully stopping a goal with his hand, about midway through the first half, forced DeWalt from the match, putting an already outgunned Little Giant team shorthanded for 60 minutes in a 10-0 season-ending loss to the Yellow Jackets.
“He’s grown so much in these last three seasons,” Coressel said of DeWalt following the team’s weekend tie with Sandusky. “I remember when he walked in the first day of practice as a freshman and it was like, ‘What are we going to do with all these kids, they’re small and kind of scrawny,’ and now, if we don’t have him back there, we’re definitely not a nine-win team, we’re probably a five- or six-win team, if we’re lucky.
“He’s a huge difference-maker, he keeps so many opportunities from getting to the net and especially that he can sprint back and take away those one-on-one opportunities because a lot of teams will bury those.”
While DeWalt’s absence certainly didn’t help matters, even with him in there, Ross faced a stiff test. Despite the challenge of its opponent, Coressel was pleased with how his team battled.
“They scored relatively early, about 10 minutes in, and it was fighting an uphill battle from there,” he said. “They’re a really good team. They knew how to beat our back line to get a couple balls in and they also had a couple shots that were just amazing shots, nothing that our goalkeepers could do anything about.
The loss ends the Little Giants’ year with a 9-7-2 record, though one of those losses was due to a forfeit of their season-opening win over Sandusky Perkins.
“I was proud of everything they did this year,” Coressel said. “We overcame a lot of things, not having a whole lot of depth and to be able to get, basically, another 10-win season, was a program taking a step in the right direction. We showed that we can still compete even without some of the pieces we had that graduated and we have to try to do that again next season.”
Next season the Little Giants will have to continue without seniors Allistair Bonny, Charlie Corthell, Tim Mosser, Caleb Bennison, Kevin Navarro and Dylan Brady, who scored 33 goals this year and more than 60 for his career. Replacing Brady’s production is going to be a significant challenge for the 2019 Little Giants.
“It’s going toe huge,” Coressel said. “I think we do have some things we found throughout the season during our adversity this season that will help moving forward.
“I think we have an extremely strong junior group that will be seniors that are going to have the challenge of leading a whole bunch of other young guys to see if we can duplicate the success we’ve had the last two years.”