From after-school practices and long bus rides to winning shootouts in overtime, the Varsity Bear Soccer team’s season has officially come to a close after losing to Palestine in the third round of playoffs Tuesday night.
After their final regular season district game against Splendora, the Bears were automatically sent to the second round of playoffs, which put them in the running against the Jasper Bulldogs.
“The biggest challenge of the first playoff game was keeping up with the high intensity of the other team,” senior Tyler Brown said.
The teams were neck and neck throughout the entire game and at the end of the second half were still tied 2-2 with goals from Brown and senior captain Jacob Thomas. They were pushed into overtime, eventually leading to a penalty kick shootout, where senior Dallas Stewart was put in as the goalkeeper.
“There were plenty of highlights,” Stewart said. “I would say some of the biggest ones were Jacob tapping in a nice finish in the box for our first goal, Tyler blasting it into the net from forty yards out for our second goal, me sliding out of nowhere to save their shot from rolling over the line when our season was literally an inch away from being over, the PK shootout when I saved their first three shots, and when Skyler made his PK to seal the win.”
According to Stewart, he was ready to be put in as the goalie and he is always the goalkeeper for shootout situations.
“I knew what my job was and what I had to do for my team,” Stewart said. “I refused to lose and that was the biggest thing.”

After the Bears’ win against Jasper, the third round playoff game put them against Palestine, where LCM suffered a tough 3-0 loss.
“The biggest challenge for the game against Palestine was getting over the thought of them being ranked number one in the state,” Brown said.
Stewart admits the biggest challenge against Palestine was trying to get them out of their comfort zone. Regardless of the loss, he believes the Bears played very well considering the opposing team’s rank.
“They are the number one team in the state and had a lot of skill,” Stewart said. “It said a lot about us to have 50/50 possession with them and give them the closest game they’ve had all year.”
Stewart also said two main advantage points of this year’s varsity team are that the players are strong defensively and play with so much heart. Brown agreed, saying that the biggest strength for this year’s team was their will to win and their conditioning over the other teams. If he could have changed one thing about the season, he said he would have made it longer and wouldn’t think twice about it because he isn’t ready to stop playing and bonding with every teammate.

Brown also said his all-time favorite memory from Bear Soccer was winning the district championship his junior year. As for Stewart, his favorite memory was the second round of playoffs against Jasper after the Bears won and he will never forget his teammates running to him to celebrate the win. Despite the heartbreaking loss in the last round, Stewart said he would not change one thing about this season.
“I love this group of guys,” he said. “We didn’t have that one player who could just take over the game and it made us grow as a team and just play our hearts out. That’s all I could ever want.”