Heathwood Hall boys soccer loses state title game to Porter-Gaud

Heathwood Hall coach Andrew Richardson sat in a crouch, head down. Every so often, he grabbed the bottom of his shirt to wipe the tears away.

He wasn’t brought to such emotion by the result of Saturday’s Class 3A state title game, a 3-0 loss to Porter-Gaud on Heathwood’s home field. Instead, he couldn’t hold back because of the finality for his group of seniors.

“The hardest part will be the first practice next year when we meet and they’re not there,” Richardson said. “Since I’ve been here, they’ve been with me. We had six of them, five of them were here for five years. The impact they left on this program, it’ll be felt forever.”

The Cyclones (17-3-3) came out attacking. They generated at least three chances from point-blank range, and Will Mooney converted the third into a score, 20 minutes in. Coleman Smith added another just before the half and Michael Sloan finished off the scoring early in the second half.

Porter-Gaud had been waiting a long time for this moment. The team reached the past two state finals, and lost to Cardinal Newman both times. With 10 seniors, they didn’t want to go home empty-handed.

“We knew that if we continued to persevere, and our goal every year is to be able to make it to this point, and they’ve done it,” Cyclones coach Juan Roncancio said. “We finally got it done. Nobody was going to deny us this year.”

Heathwood Hall (14-7-1) put the ball on net six times on 10 shots, and keeper Nygel Vaughn made nine saves despite facing a slew of difficult shots.

Afterward, the Highlanders players walks through the rites of the end of a season. The tears, the hugs and the sorrowful realization they’re not simply sad because they lost, but because it’s over.

“The loss is the tiniest part of it,” Richardson said. “The hardest part is not being able to coach the seniors and not getting another chance to be their coach.”

This story was originally published May 14, 2016 at 3:53 PM with the headline "Heathwood Hall boys soccer loses state title game to Porter-Gaud."