The Clear Creek Bobcats are Mountain League soccer champions.
CCMS won the title last Monday on the road versus the Lumpkin County Indians. The score was tied 1-1 at the end of regulation and overtime, and CCMS earned a 3-1 edge in penalty kicks to claim the championship.
“It was amazing,” head coach Aaron Evans said of the win. “The team is like a big family, and they’re happy to be around each other. They know when it’s time to get focused and worked hard every day.
“At the beginning of the season, I told them our goal is to be in that championship game. They took that to heart because each and every day they came to practice, you could see they had that mentality and mindset to be a winning team.”
CCMS and Lumpkin were very familiar with each other. They met just 12 days prior in the final week of the regular season, and that match ended in a 2-2 tie. When they met for the title, Evans made some adjustments.
“I wanted to be more defensive. I knew they had speed, quickness up top, they worked the ball around a lot to find spaces and had good possession,” Evans said. “So for us, it was going to be more of a defensive game against them. We focused on defending, closing down (on the ball) and not providing that space for them.”
The tactic worked as the score remained tied at 0-0 at the break. An Indian headed a cross into the net at the midway point of the second half.
With eight minutes left on the clock, Bobcat Brayner Ortiz sent a cross into the box. The pass found Liam Engle, who chipped the ball over the goalkeeper to even the score, 1-1.
Overtime came next, which included two five-minute periods. The score remained unchanged, and penalty kicks were needed to decide a winner.
Each team selected five players. Ortiz was up first for CCMS and found the back of the net before the next two Bobcats missed. Lumpkin was held scoreless through its first two but made its third to even the tally at 1-1.
Bobcats Keby Puac and Alex Tercero were up next and both made their penalty kicks to seal the Bobcats’ title.
In the semifinals a week earlier, CCMS defeated Fannin County, 2-0. The victory avenged the Bobcats’ only loss of the season, which came against Fannin (1-0) in the first week of the season.
Evans discussed what the defeat did for the Bobcats’ season, saying, “You could see in their eyes that they were mad, angry and frustrated we lost, because that was a game that we should have won. Even though that was early on in the season, it was also the turning point of the season.
“I told them to use this feeling and frustration for motivation to work harder each and every day. After that, we really didn’t look back. Aside from Lumpkin, there weren’t many close games.”
In addition to the four aforementioned results, Clear Creek defeated league opponents Pickens (4-1), White County (6-0), Union County (4-0) and Dawson County (4-2). Including a pair of nonleague wins over Towns County by scores of 5-1 and 3-0, the Bobcats outscored opponents by 16 goals on the season.
Clear Creek finished the year with an 8-1-1 overall record. The Bobcats were undefeated last year before the COVID-19 pandemic ended their season. Over the previous two seasons, the Bobcats posted a 15-1-1 record.