Playoff-tested, battle-hardened ConVal is in the midst of one of their best boys’ soccer seasons in history, and the Cougars don’t want it to end just yet.
ConVal’s season came to an unjust finale last year, as the Cougars were eliminated from the playoffs by John Stark after a marathon shootout.
“It was a hard-fought game,” recalled senior keeper Noah Bell, who was on the line as General after General came up and took their turns during last year’s battle. “I don’t think a PK shootout really defines what team is better than the other, it’s more of just ‘we need a winner.’”
The winner on that October day was John Stark. Since then, the Cougars have lost exactly once, on their way to a school-record 15-1 season. The key, ConVal’s seniors and captains agreed, has been the tight-knit, family-like atmosphere that surrounds this team.
“I think we are a family this season,” Bell said. “We all came together.”
ConVal’s core this season is made up of a group of juniors and seniors who had back-to-back undefeated championship seasons at South Meadow School. In fact, Bell said, a lot of them have been playing together since third grade, where they joined a ConVal soccer club team coached by junior Max Sturges’ father, Gavin. The players have carried that success on to the high school level, but this is the first year it really clicked.
A few years ago, the Cougars were a strong playoff team, made up of players like Austin Wheeler and Campbell French. While those upperclassmen got along with the freshman class — today’s seniors — but there was a bit of a divide. Bell and Nile Hertzler, another senior, explained that they’d grown up watching these players as heroes, and playing alongside them was a little surreal.
“They were these older guys that we all looked up to,” Bell said, “and we’re playing alongside them now, so it was kind of weird.”
“It felt like during practice they would kind of naturally divide,” added junior captain Matt Kolk. “We weren’t as tight as we are now.”
Now, the Cougars are like brothers, Bell said, and the results have been tangible. The Cougars went 15-1, much to the delight of Hertzler, a Cougar legacy who was proud to top the record put up by his brother Gary’s 14-2 team back in 1999. Nile is the fifth and final of his siblings to play for ConVal, and his team just might be the best of the bunch.
“I think this is the most exciting year I’ve had I think ever,” Hertzler said, “just because of how close we are. I’m hoping to leave with a bang.”
ConVal’s only loss came against Lebanon, the No. 1 overall seed at 15-1. Since then, the Cougars have reeled off 11 straight wins.
Due to offseason divisional restructuring by the NHIAA, only 15 teams made the cut for the Division II boys’ soccer playoffs, as opposed to 16 in previous years. That, plus a bit of convoluted tie-breaking, means that ConVal ended up with the No. 3 seed, behind Lebanon and Pembroke. With an odd number of teams in the postseason, ConVal won’t get a bye, and will open the playoffs by hosting No. 14 Trinity Wednesday at 3 p.m.
Whatever happens in the playoffs, ConVal has a bright future, with only five players departing after this year and an unreal junior class. But, Kolk said, they aren’t looking ahead any further than the next game.
“We’ve got a positive future but we’ve got to look to this year,” Kolk said. “If we focus on this year and not think about ‘Ah, we’ve always got another shot,’ I think we could make it happen.”
The Cougars will lose Bell, Hertzler, Caleb Putnam and Cam Merwede to graduation, as well as exchange student Luca Haufler, who was a welcome addition to the team in his year here living with the Kolks.
“I’m friends with everyone on the team,” Haufler said. “It feels great to jump in. I was just here for one year, and we were so successful. I think if we win the championship, that would be a good memory for me and for these guys. I really want to go hard for these guys.”
For now, ConVal is preparing for a tough game with Trinity, “refining everything, getting everything down so we make minimal mistakes,” Hertzler said. If the Cougars’ storybook season is to continue, they’ll need to play nearly mistake-free, and with the sting of last year’s playoff defeat not quite faded, they’ll do anything to avoid that same fate.
“I think it’s going to be a reminder this year to just not let it happen again, because it was a pretty bad feeling,” Kolk said.
Interestingly enough, ConVal hasn’t even played an overtime game yet this season, but if a playoff game goes into a shootout, Bell is ready.
“It’s about just giving it all for that one save,” Bell said, “because if you make that one, you might not have to make another, and you know that you gave everything for that one.”