The Sealy Tiger soccer team staked claim to its home turf and earned its third straight playoff win on Mark A. Chapman Field at T.J. Mills Stadium last Friday over Caldwell 5-0 in the Bi-District Championship.

Sealy advanced to the second round where it was set to face the Waco La Vega Pirates in Bryan Tuesday evening.

Last Friday at home, the Tigers got out to a 2-0 lead thanks to Tanner Ellis’ throw-ins to Rodolfo Olivarez before six minutes were played in the game. The pair both felt it set the tone for the first-round postseason contest.

“It pushed us to keep going on the first goal, it made me go harder for the second goal,” Olivarez said postgame.

“That made me crazy hyped and I know it made the team hyped,” Ellis said.

Ellis also found the back of the net later in the half to give Sealy a three-goal advantage at the halftime break. However, that was familiar territory for multiple reasons, Tiger Head Coach Josh Kirton said.

“‘Keep the focus and who knows, at threenothing, the game’s not over yet. We’ve still got to play another forty minutes, they’re not just going to phone it in,’” Kirton said of the message at intermission. “I reminded them before that we’ve been in games where we’ve conceded and came back and we’ve also been up three and the other team came back so they did really well to keep the energy up.”

The head coach added his thought that the players fed off the home crowd’s energy and the first-half goal scorers agreed.

“We practice on this field every day, the kids are comfortable with it and for the most part, the kids like playing here because of that comfort level and we draw a good crowd with a lot of their friends and family and the energy is always great and I think they feed off that,” Kirton said.

“It feels amazing, feels really good to do that with my teammates,” Olivarez said of winning the home playoff match.

“It feels amazing, I love the energy,” Ellis said. “The boys are feeling great, fired up after this one and just hope to get some players back that we lost and didn’t play today.”