SYRACUSE – On Saturday afternoon the Wawasee boys soccer team played arguably its best game of the season. The only problem is that a team’s best is not always enough to get a win.

The Warriors went toe-to-toe with Class 2-A No. 6 Warsaw for 80 minutes but in the end it was the Tigers who were able to find the back of the net. Warsaw scored two goals late in Saturday’s game to claim a 2-0 Northern Lakes Conference victory at Warrior Field.

Both team’s took the field determined and pumped up for Saturday’s match and the intensity was on full display in the first half. Despite the fast-paced and aggressive play on offense for both squads, neither team could muster a shot on goal before half time.

Warsaw wasted little time changing that stat in the opening minutes of the second half. The Tigers tallied two shots on goal over the course of one minute after the start of the second half. Despite the sudden attack on Wawasee’s goal, Warsaw could still not get it by Warrior keeper Korey Knafel who made several athletic saves throughout the match. But the bending Wawasee defense eventually broke.

With 12:23 left to play in the game Tiger junior Tito Cuellar launched a free kick towards the Warrior goal where Caleb Klusman headed it in behind Knafel to give Warsaw the go-ahead goal.

The Warriors were undeterred following the goal but remained scoreless for the rest of the game. Cuellar added an insurance goal for the Tigers with just seven seconds remaining to give Warsaw its 2-0 victory.

Warsaw head coach Scott Bauer was happy his team grabbed the victory but thought the result could have been much more in his team’s favor, “Nothing really went our way in that first half. We didn’t come to play, we’ve struggled with that at times this year. We didn’t give up anything in the first half so that was good.

“At half I pointed out what we were doing wrong and kept telling the guys that they didn’t want to be the first team to lose to Wawasee in my 13 years here. I challenged them to pick it up in every area, which I think they did. 2-0 is fair, but had we come out in the first half we could have had some more goals.”

While a loss is always disappointing, Warrior head coach Jordan Sharp remained positive about his team’s performance, “We have been asking these guys to dig down deep and figure out what it is they want from this team. Coach (Justin) Evans and I told them what we wanted from them which is that we just want the guys to give their all, every game, 100 percent.

“We seemed to be going down a path where people were getting frustrated on the field and we were not able to have fun or play our best. So, we did some tweaking and I think we are in a much better place and obviously playing much better. We gave it our all today and played extremely well, I am honored to be the coach of this team.”

Warsaw (9-1-5, 4-1-1) will play Fort Wayne Carroll on Monday night with play starting at 5:00 p.m.

Wawasee (5-6-3, 1-3-1) will travel to Middlebury on Tuesday night to take on Northridge starting with the varsity match starting at approximately 6:30 p.m.

In the junior varsity match the JV Tigers won 2-0 over the JV Warriors. Edward Esqueda and Pedro Monsivais had goals for Warsaw while Derek Kratzsch and Aaron Wainscott provided assists.