Oct. 23: Grizz dominate, settle for No. 3 seed

By Chris Miller

Ashland Daily Tidings

The Ashland High boys soccer team came into Tuesday's regular season final match with Eagle Point needing a win to stay in contention for the No. 2 playoff seed out of the Southern Oregon Conference.

What they got was a 10-0 blowout win and the No. 3 seed.

Fifty-three seconds into the game, Grizzly senior midfielder Fletcher Beaudoin took a long pass down the left side of the field and easily beat Eagle Point freshman goaltender Michael Sweeney.

It just got worse from there.

The win allowed the Grizz to finish the regular season 8-3 overall and 5-2 in the SOC, tied with Crater for second place in the final league standings. Crater takes the No. 2 seed, however, thanks to its 1-0 shootout win over Ashland on Oct. 5 and 3-2 shootout win over Roseburg on Tuesday.

The seventh-ranked Grizzlies will open the 36-team Class 4A state tournament on the road Nov. 2 against the No. 2 seed out of the Portland Interscholastic League. The PIL had no top-10 ranked teams in the Oct. 15 coaches poll.

The Grizz scored seven first-half goals on eight shots, and the shot that missed may have been on purpose.

Grizzly head coach Eisa Tia Toutou told his squad from the sideline that they were not to score any more after the game turned into a route in the 11th minute, when sophomore striker Fabian Garcia-Flores scored to make the game 5-0.

Despite the lopsided final, the game was nowhere near as close as the score. The Grizzlies could have scored 30 goals against the smaller, younger Eagles (0-7 SOC).

For the entire second half and the end of the first the Grizzlies' sent out just eight attackers against the Eagles 10. Even this couldn't keep Ashland from scoring more, as they tacked on three more goals in the second 40 minutes.

Toutou sent out an all-senior lineup to start the second half, except for junior keeper Tony Laughlin. Laughlin was never tested in the game, needing to make only one save. Eagle Point finished the game with two shots.

The Grizzlies were considered one of the preseason favorites to win the SOC. South Medford, which took the conference championship with a 7-0 league record, was the other. Ashland had two mid-season defeats against South and Crater that hampered their title run.

Senior defender Alex Christlieb said he thinks the Grizzlies have forgotten about the losses and that making the playoffs was their ultimate goal.

"I think overall we're pleased (with the season) because we're going to be in the playoffs, and that's all that matters," Christlieb said. "Everything starts over, and you really show your colors in the playoffs. It's just one game at a time."

Toutou said he thinks the Grizzlies have learned a valuable lesson from the two SOC defeats.

"We came to the conclusion that we need to play better balls," Toutou said. "And we need to show more patience. In the two losses we just ran out of patience."

Ashland will enter the playoffs without any major injuries. Junior striker Rick Ferguson sat out Tuesday's game with a shoulder injury suffered Saturday against North Medford, but is expected to be ready in plenty of time for Ashland's playoff opener.

Toutou said to go far in the playoffs, his team needs to master the mental game.

"Physically were as good as anybody in the league, or in the state," Toutou said. "We just need conditioning and to focus. Focus is the key for us."

After losing to South 2-1 the Grizzlies would like a little revenge, and Toutou said nothing would be better than an all-SOC final.

"It would be sweet to play (South) in the finals and beat them," Toutou said. "It would be great to see two teams from this conference play in the finals. We have to start from the get-go. What we need to do is focus on one game at a time."

Once Ashland's playoff run is ended, it will lose nine players to graduation. Gone will be their two co-captains, senior Matt Sharp, and Christlieb. Toutou said he will greatly miss the pair, but losing players is the name of the game in high school sports.

"Matt and Alex, you cannot replace them at all," he said. "These guys have tremendous energy and tremendous effort, and they love the game so much. Next year is a dilemma. I came to the conclusion that this is high school athletics. Every year you get seniors that leave due to graduation and you get freshmen coming in and you look for the freshmen to graduate and prepare for the next level."