Coming into its regular season finale at Washington & Jefferson Saturday, Oct. 28, the Waynesburg University men’s soccer team needed a win or a draw to qualify for the Presidents’ Athletic Conference playoffs for the first time since 2014.

Unfortunately for the Yellow Jackets, their season ended Saturday with a 3-1 loss to the Presidents. For head coach Brad Heethuis, the Jackets turned in a poor performance in a crucial matchup.

“It was a tough one,” Heethuis said. “Unfortunately, we played probably overall one of our worst games of the year in one of the biggest times. There’s no blame to be put around…W&J was the better side on the day, and that’s soccer sometimes.”

Coming into Saturday, Waynesburg was in a three-way tie with W&J and Westminster for the fourth and final playoff spot at 3-3 in PAC play, with Bethany not far behind at 2-3-1. Because both Westminster and Bethany lost this weekend, to Grove City and St. Vincent, respectively, even managing a tie at W&J would have gotten Waynesburg into the playoffs due to the Jackets having a higher goal differential than the Presidents.

W&J drew first blood roughly 13 minutes into the game when junior midfielder Paul Mokrzan scored his fifth goal of the season, assisted by senior Jason Yobbi. Neither team scored for the rest of the half, and W&J took a 1-0 lead into the locker room. At the half, the Presidents led the Jackets 11-4 in shots, and 9-2 in shots on net.

Less than 20 minutes into the second half, Waynesburg tied the game when sophomore midfielder Nate Kummer converted a penalty kick.

“We had to take a look at ourselves in the mirror at halftime, and we came out better [in the second half],” Heethuis said. “To get that PK…really it was a shot in the arm for us, and I would say even before that and then after that for [the next few minutes], we did better.”

The momentum did not last much longer. A little over 10 minutes after Waynesburg equalized, W&J retook the lead when junior midfielder Matt Kotkiewicz scored his fourth goal of the season, with Yobbi picking up his second assist of the game.

For junior forward Tyler Sisler, the Presidents taking the lead halted the Jacket’s second-half rhythm.

“It really was a heartbreak kind of because we were controlling them the whole second half,” Sisler said. “We were taking it to them really, and then we get our goal back and we think ‘oh hey we’re back in this,’ and then they get a free kick outside the box, and a little mistake by us and we go down 2-1.”

Seventeen seconds before the end of the game, freshman Jacob Fetterman’s fifth goal of the season made it 3-1 and sealed the win and ultimately a playoff berth for the Presidents. For Heethuis, the second half saw plenty of positives despite the loss.

“After they scored, we came right back and were controlling certainly more of the play,” Heethuis said. “It was kind of that final pass, once we got to the attacking third, that we couldn’t put together. The final run, the final pass, the final touch, the final shot. That’s kind of what we struggled with after that. We had the lion’s share of possession; we just couldn’t get it done.”

Despite the importance of the game, neither Heethuis nor Sisler feels that nerves greatly affected the outcome.

“The guys were ready to go,” Heethuis said. “Pregame and in warmups we looked pretty good, looked ready to roll, and then we hit the first five, 10 minutes, and it was pretty obvious that something wasn’t there.”

Sisler feels that the teams pregame focus did not carry over into the first half.

“Starting from the bus ride to W&J from the locker room we were really hyped up and ready to get out there,” Sisler said. “I think as soon as we stepped on the field, the whistle blew. We just… we died. We were like ‘oh, what do we do now? Then once they got that first goal, really, we just dropped our heads.”

Waynesburg is losing just two starters from this year’s squad. Defender Bryan Sontag is the only player graduating, while freshman forward Thomas Drake is an exchange student, and therefore will not be returning next year. For Heethuis, there is plenty to build on for the future.

“It was hopefully another season of growth for the guys,” Heethuis said. “Still a very young team, only losing one senior and one exchange student, so that’s promising going forward. I hope [2017] was a very good learning process for the guys on and off the field. There were a lot of tight games, some went our way, some did not. So hopefully, being able to be put in that situation a lot will help us towards next year and that experience will only make us better for next year.”