Defending state champs enter regionals 21-0
By Kevin Cunningham
Correspondent
The pursuit of perfection was complete – at least for the regular season – when the Delavan-Darien High School boys soccer team defeated Whitewater 4-1 on Oct. 15, giving the team a 21-0 record heading into regional play.
The defending state champions will begin regionals Thursday when the Comets take on the winner of Saint Anthony-Veritas/Tenor.
The No. 1-ranked Comets scored the first goal of the game against Whitewater, then the Whippets answered back to bring the score even heading into halftime. Tigrio Huerta scored two more after the half, giving him three goals on the game.
In the second half, the Comets shut out the Whippets, sealing their perfect regular season. Goalkeeper Ricardo Huerta made three saves in the game and to end the season, has a 0.89 goals against average per game.
In comparison to the less than one goal allowed per game average, the Comets are scoring just over six goals per contest this season. Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association tournament play-in games were scheduled to begin Tuesday, but the Comets will wait to play Thursday because of their No. 1 seed status in their region.
Saint Anthony will enter the play-in game with a 5-12-2 record, while Veritas/Tenor posts a 15-5-3 record on the season. The winner will play the Comets at 7 p.m. Thursday at Delavan-Darien High School.
If the Comets get past that game, the last regional game will be against the winner of Whitewater-Saint Thomas More. Then in the sectional, the No. 2 seed in the Comets’ region is Whitnall. Whitnall finished the regular season as wissports.net’s No. 5-ranked team at 15-1-1 overall.
Offensively throughout the season, head coach Mike Marse has stressed that his offense doesn’t care who scores, as long as they do score. The team cares about setting up one another.
Despite the mass amount of options offensively, 82 of the team’s 130 goals this season have come from junior forward Tigrio Huerta and sophomore forward Jason Cano. Fast starts to games have also been a norm for the Comets this season, as in the first halves of games, the team has outscored its opponents 71-9.
Only four times all season have the Comets allowed more than one goal, and entering the postseason, the team has won its last six games by a combined score of 31-3.
