They weren’t picked to win the South Puget Sound League North Division.
Nor were they chosen to make it all the way to the Final Four of the Class 4A state tournament.
But the Kentwood High boys soccer team exceeded expectations time and time again this spring. On Saturday at Harry E. Lang Stadium, the Conquerors did it one last time. Behind goals from Ivan Manzano and Jared Fuller along with a shutout by goalkeeper Chris Kubeja, the Conquerors turned back Stadium 2-0 to claim a third-place trophy from the state tournament.
“All year long, they’ve come out and surprised people,” said coach Aaron Radford. “They surprised me, they surprised each other, they surprised the league and the fans. They were incredible.”
Indeed they were. The Conquerors (17-2-3) didn’t even qualify for the South Puget Sound League playoffs a year ago, but showed what they were capable of in the first game of the season, when they knocked off league favorite Jefferson, 2-1. From that point on, the wins came in droves for the Conquerors, a team that used a stingy defense and a balanced offense to match the program’s best state finish in school history. Kentwood took third at state in 2002.
“I guarantee that if I would have asked any of them what their goal was at the start of the season, it would have been to make the playoffs,” Radford said.
A big key to Kentwood’s success was the play of Fuller, one of just four seniors on the roster. Fuller suffered a broken leg in the final game last year and it was unclear whether he would be able to return at all this spring.
Fuller certainly was ready. The senior scored Kentwood’s first goal of the season in that win over Jefferson. And with Saturday’s tally in the 68th minute on an assist from Cody Crook, Fuller also scored the team’s final goal of the year.
“He has been the leader and the senior with the experience. He has been there since his freshman year building to this point,” Radford said. “Last year’s broken leg was just devastating. It was a hard thing for him and the team to deal with. To have him come back and play like it had never happened was just huge.”
Kubeja, who played on the junior varsity last season, was equally huge. Manzano gave Kubeja all the scoring he would need with a goal in the 65th minute on an assist from Stefan Bangsund. It was Kubeja’s ninth shutout of the year.
The Conquerors completed the season by winning four of their final five games.
Kentwood will graduate four seniors from this year’s team: Fuller, Matt Day, Jared Allen, and Colby Goodrich.
“It was an incredible run,” Radford said. “It was beyond everybody’s expectations.”
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