The Sealy Tiger soccer team lost a 2-0 lead over the Splendora Wildcats within 4:13 in the final minutes of regulation and was eliminated in the regional semifinals in its first fourth-round appearance in program history by a 3-2 score April 6 at Cy Park High School.

Splendora’s first goal came with only 5:44 showing on the clock, its second came two minutes later and the game-winner came just over two minutes after that to secure a one-goal lead for the Wildcats with 1:29 left in regulation.

The loss closed the longest playoff run for the Tigers in program history where they reached the semifinals of the Region III/IV bracket. Sealy earned wins in previous rounds over Smithville (5-2), Waco La Vega (2-1) and Salado (3-1).

In the fourth round, the Tigers opened the scoring less than halfway through the first half with a pair of goals within 2:16. A Tanner Ellis throw-in was deflected off a Wildcat defender into the net at 24:40 and Amador Lopez rebounded a shot off a fumbled save by the Splendora keeper at 22:24 but that was the extent of Sealy’s scoring.

District-22 Champion Splendora advanced to the regional final against Huffman Hargrave, a district foe of the Wildcats, and fell by a 1-0 score to find the end of the road also.

Despite coming up just short of a chance to play in the state tournament, head coach Juan Perez said this group of Sealy Tiger soccer players exceeded the early-season expectations.

“It’s special, it makes me happy because I love the game and they gave me something that I wasn’t expecting coming into this year,” Perez said. “I don’t know what the difference was but this group has a lot of younger players, we don’t have a lot of seniors but they gave me something extra. They made me feel like I really love this game.”

Senior leaders Ricky Avila, Angel Guerrero and Fonsi Avalos agreed it was an extraordinary year.

“Very special, we did it for our coaches, for our seniors and our supporters and everything,” Avila said.

“Just playing since freshman year and playing with all of these people, with it being our senior year we wanted to be sure they’d remember our class,” Guerrero said.

“That’s what we wanted from the start, to change how people see Sealy soccer and just wanted to boost it up,” Avalos said. “Definitely want more people playing next year.”

Plenty of contributors from the 2021 squad will return but they likely won’t have the same expectations coming into the season that this year’s Tigers did.

“That they have a lot of work to do,” Perez said of a takeaway. “Because we set the standard very high and I hope we keep doing this, Sealy deserves this. To see the fans that came all the way here, they went everywhere with us and they deserve this kind of success.”

“It’s a blessing to be out here one more time for the future of the program and we’ll see if they can go farther than us,” Avila said.