This past week, the Saint Ignatius varsity soccer team's season came to an end, just short of their intended goal. The Wildcats lost to Medina 2-0 in the State Semifinal, ending the season with a 15-4-3 record.

This year's Cats came out with a different mentality than in past years. The Wildcats were not the preseason favorites to win states again, but were seen as a young team who was supposed to be rebuilding and not even go very far into the playoffs.

Led by senior captains Alex Rohr and Ryan Mark, the young squad set out to prove their doubters wrong.

In the third game of the season, the program's 61-match streak of no losses that spanned over the past few seasons was broken by St. Xavier. However, that did not faze the Cats, as they started out the year 8-1-1. One of these wins was a big 4-1 win over rival St. Edward.

Having such a young roster, the Cats saw fantastic play out of sophomores Matt McLaughlin, Kyle Folds and Nolan Bartolone, to name a few, to accompany the more veteran players like Alex Rohr, Kevin Shearer, Kory Nekeloff, Bryce Horton, and Kyle Healy.

In net, we saw many outstanding performances from both senior captain Ryan Mark and sophomore Peter van Euwen.

The team's regular season performance gave them the No. 1 seed in the district going into the playoffs. The Wildcats rolled through the early stages of postseason play, winning five in a row. Heading into the State Semifinal game, the Cats had outscored their opponents 22-2 over the five playoff matches.

The young squad proved countless doubters wrong by showing how skilled, physical, and smart they were as a unit on the field all season long.

This year's young team showed tremendous grit and mental toughness numerous times and had an overall fantastic season. The team only graduates three seniors and is looking forward to next season ready to bounce back and claim what is theirs.

Congrats to the 2017 Wildcat Soccer team on an outstanding season!