The North Platte boys’ soccer season may be over. After taking it to Southeast 4-1, they faced off against Central, and lost it in a shootout. The Dawgs played with heart and energy and gave it everything they had, but the Eagles just made too many stops.
The Dawgs finished the regular season at 12-5. The first slip up this season came against Lincoln Southeast. The Knights overwhelmed the experienced North Platte back, and took down the Dawgs 4-0. “We had no energy, we were dead, we weren’t in it, it was a real humbler,” said Phillips, “It was a good wake up call, and we needed that for GNAC.”
The Dawgs went undefeated on the weekend of the tournament, with big wins against Scottsbluff, Columbus, and Kearney to secure the title. “The Kearney Game was one of the craziest games of my life. [Sophomore] Malik [Lillard] scored off of a corner from [senior] Rashawn [Bryant]. That put us up 1-0 late. Then with 20 seconds left, they had a corner, put it right where it needed to be, but our defense is a bunch of beasts,” he said.
Going into the quad at home against Lincoln East and Northeast, Phillips had recorded 8 shutouts in his career, tied for the school record. The Dawgs added two more that day taking them down 1-0 and 5-0 respectively. Phillips will look to add to that next year.
While it would have been great to seal the deal on Wednesday, a trip to Omaha is not out of the realm of possibility. Millard North and Kearney played last night and if both teams won, North Platte is headed to Omaha.