SHELBYVILLE — It’s not the loss of the match that hurts the most.
For the Greenfield-Central’s boys soccer team — 14 seniors strong — it’s the loss of not being around each other every day causing the biggest sting.
A band of senior brothers, four years in the making, had their last run Saturday at the Shelbyville Soccer Complex, losing 2-1 to East Central, in two overtimes, in the Class 3A Sectional 12 championship match.
“I’d rather lose every game with this bunch than to win a game with anybody else,” Greenfield-Central assistant coach Matt McConnell said. “A classy group of kids who put together a remarkable season and we fall just two, three minutes short of a play. That’s the way the ball falls sometimes.”
Scoreless for the majority of the match, East Central got on the board with 18:12 remaining in the match. JT Roden scored his 24th goal of the season to give his team the lead.
Just 76 seconds later, Greenfield-Central’s Michael Runions scored his only goal of the year. A designed play to put some extra pressure on the East Central goalkeeper, Joost Van Den Berg. Runions’ kick popped perfectly over the keeper’s head, who had moved up a few feet from the goal line, tying the match 1-1 with 16:56 to play.
“All season we’ve been working with those outside backs on making sure to play those balls in dangerous areas,” McConnell said. “We’ve had a couple goals come from Tyler Kerkhof this season on the same sort of play. Tonight was Mike’s night to do that … It was great after getting scored on to so quickly come right back and put it back in.”
With saves from G-C goalkeeper Jordin Jones and numerous clears from the danger zone from his defense in front of him, both teams finished regulation and the first seven-minute overtime without adding another tally to the scoreboard
That changed at the 2:44 mark when East Central’s Joey Black had the game-decider.
“We say family forever at Greenfield-Central,” senior forward Bryce Kinnaman said. “To realize you’re not going to be able to step on the field again with (the seniors), plus you … if feels like you’re losing a brother. I don’t get to spend the rest of the week with these guys. We’ll be going home after school in the future. It’s something you take for granted during the fall.”
“I’m going to miss those guys. I hope the best for the guys in the future, but it’s really depressing (right now),” Kinnaman added. “As coach McConnell said in our huddle, ‘We may bicker as a family, but that’s what brothers do.’ We have brotherly love and you can’t beat that.”
The list of accomplish for the senior-laden 2022 Cougars is long.
The team and its goalkeeper Jones, who is a rare sophomore in the lineup, set a school record with 13 shutouts.
They won the Hoosier Heritage Conference with an undefeated 7-0 record, holding all seven conference opponents scoreless. With that 7-0 mark, they held on to the HHC Victory Bell — which they had to start the season — the entire campaign.
Along with the bell, they maintained ownership of the Rob Thomas Cup, a traveling trophy among the Cougars and the other two Hancock County soccer-playing schools, New Palestine and Mt. Vernon. G-C is the only team to ever have the cup, which started during the 2021 season.
Overall the team finished with a record of 12-2-3.
Kinnaman was the team’s top scorer with 19 points, including seven goals, which tied him for the team lead in net-finders with Dalton Evanoff, another senior.
Other seniors on the club included, Devin Evanoff, Josiah Findlay, Dillon Smith, Hunter Stine, Ian Jack, Nicklaus Strange, Alexander Reed, Ethan Starks, Drew Davidson, Garrett Hollis, Ethan Hollis, Kerkhof and Runions
“They’re a gritty group that is really, really close to each other,” McConnell said of the class. “It’s a lot like having 14 brothers on the team, who sometimes even argue like brothers. They win as brothers. They lose as brothers. They feel the victory together and they feel the pain of loss together. They’re a tight group for sure.”
East Central improved to 15-2-1, winning the sectional championship for the second straight year. The Trojans will host a regional semifinal match Wednesday against Cathedral (8-7-5).
