GREENFIELD — They’ve been here before. This time, they hope it’s different.
For many of them, this is their last chance.
With their fourth sectional championship win in a row, the Greenfield-Central boys soccer team advanced to the familiar territory of Saturday’s Carmel Regional. The program hasn’t gotten past that point since 2003, though, their lone regional championship.
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The Cougars are just 1-2 in regional semifinal games during the current run, with the win coming in 2017, when they topped Cathedral, 2-1, before falling in the regional championship to North Central, 3-2.
They have higher hopes this year.
“It’s just crazy. The fact that we’ve all been able to come together and bring four straight titles home is just incredible,” senior captain Zack Bell said. “The coaches tell us all the time, you’ve just got to keep working, keep going. We know we’ve got to keep working on our craft. I think after the third year, we thought, ‘We’ve got to go further than sectionals.’ We don’t like to stop. We want to keep going. It’s incredible what we’ve been able to do as a team.”
What they’ve been able to accomplish is remarkable. They managed to top a 13-win season in 2016 with two consecutive 14-win campaigns. Then, they raised the bar even higher this year, currently holding an 18-1 record and having gone undefeated against Indiana teams. They’ve risen to No. 12 in the state rankings. They brought home a fourth straight sectional title.
None of that is good enough for this group. They want more.
“Sure, it’s the same regional, still a really tough regional to be in. But we’re on a roll right now,” senior captain Caleb Mundell said. “We’re doing good, 18-1. We believe that we can compete with any team in the state right now. We’re not lacking confidence, we’re not scared of anybody else. We’re ready to go and conquer that next challenge.”
Raising the standard
Experience is on the Cougars’ side.
They have four seniors who were on the roster at the start of this run of regional berths, led by four-year starters Bell and Mundell. Trevor Sawyer and Tyler Murphy have had significant varsity time all four years, too.
Murphy missed time with an ACL injury this season, but otherwise the four have had a huge role in the team’s success during their high school careers. Bell leads the group in goals with 75, a school record. Mundell leads in assists with 47, another school record. Bell holds school records for goals in a game, season and career, along with single-season (79) and career points (188). Mundell holds every assist record at the school.
As a group, Bell, Mundell, Murphy and Sawyer have combined for 159 goals and 113 assists in their four-year careers.
“They continue to raise a standard that was probably started before them, but they have accelerated it at a much faster rate than I think any of us planned on,” Greenfield-Central assistant coach Matt McConnell said of the Cougars’ seniors. “They’re always pushing. This group continues to call everybody up with their actions, with their play, with their trust on the field. It just spreads to everybody else.”
It isn’t just the four seniors who have been playing since their freshmen year, though. There is plenty of experience around them, as the Cougars have nine total seniors on the roster.
Jordy Phillips started seeing significant minutes as a sophomore, while Brantley Kuntz, Bardo Bieth and Drew Oakley became key pieces their junior years. Caleb Stoeffler found his way into the varsity rotation this year as a senior.
The key for the Cougars is taking the years of experience playing together, years of experience winning together, and molding it into a couple more wins.
“We just play as a unit. We work the ball around real well,” Sawyer said. “We’ve known each other for quite a while, too, third grade, second grade. We’ve been playing since we were real young.”
“It’s really just been amazing,” Phillips added. “Coming in sophomore year, playing for three years now with the same guys, just going and winning sectional after sectional … We want to push. We want to get a regional. I think we can do it, because we play so well together.”
Support system
When Greenfield-Central won its fourth straight sectional championship Saturday, they didn’t break their post-game huddle with what you’d expect, a “one, two, three, Cougars!”
Their version is a little different. They went with, “one, two, three, family!”
If you spend any length of time — really, even minutes would suffice — around the Cougars, it quickly becomes apparent that they are more than just a high school sports team. They talk like a family, they act like a family and they joke like a family.
It’s who they are, and they wouldn’t have it any other way.
“This family means to me that if I need help with something, I can always rely on them,” Sawyer said. “They’ve always got my back in anything in life. They’ll always be there for me. This unit is going to go far, and so is this program.”
The family bond is a crucial aspect to their success, both on and off the soccer field. Many of these Cougars grew up together and have been friends for years. Most of them have played soccer together for as long as they can remember, developing and growing their games as a group.
Without the family, they wouldn’t be where they are today, getting ready to take on a fourth straight tough regional semifinal opponent in Avon.
The family is, simply put, everything to this group.
“It means everything to everyone on the team,” Phillips said. “You come in and you go to school, and the family has got your back. You need help with classes, they have you. You need help outside of school, they have you. On the field, they for sure have your back. Every time you go somewhere, they’re with you, they’re supporting you, they’re always cheering you on, always pushing you harder and harder. I think that’s why we keep getting better and better, because we have this family that surrounds us.”
The next step
The family knows they have a big challenge ahead on Saturday. It’s been that way in each of the past four years at this level.
Last year, it was Zionsville, the state’s top-ranked team that went on to finish as the state runner-up. The Cougars learned some valuable lessons in that 3-0 loss against that caliber of competition that help in preparing for Saturday.
“It definitely helps. That team was real good,” Bell said. “They were a hard-working team, and I think we came in and hadn’t seen a team like that in our season. That’s why this year we’ve really worked on buffing our schedule up and getting a lot better teams so we can see them and know what they’re like. We’re 18-1. We’ve been playing really well this season, even with those teams, and we’ve got up to 12th in the state which is a crazy accomplishment.”
Having a group that has such a strong bond and has so much experience at the regional level is also a big boost to the coaching staff heading into another tough regional.
“We obviously ran into a team that was probably the best team that we’ve ever played in Zionsville,” McConnell said. “We learned a lot from that game as coaches. It’s nice to have a team that we’ve been to this with, and these guys, the maturity that they bring to a field is not something that you get to see very often on a high school team.”
Zionsville (17-0) is there again this year, and this time they are No. 1 in the state and No. 2 nationally in the MaxPreps.com rankings. They play Cathedral (9-8-2) in one regional semifinal.
The Cougars get Avon (12-6-1), a team they were supposed to play in August but didn’t get to due to weather.
It’s a new opponent for the Greenfield-Central soccer family, but they come into the game confident, playing what they feel is the best they’ve ever played, and they believe they can get to a regional championship game and have a shot at advancing to semistate.
“I think it’s for sure the peak,” Mundell said. “The play is faster than it’s been the four years I’ve been here. On the field, I feel like the trust for each other is further than it’s ever been. We’re just clicking really well together. I think it has a lot to do with the experience we have together.”
The Cougars play Avon at 10 a.m. Saturday at Carmel. Zionsville and Cathedral meet at noon, and the winners will play at 7 p.m. for the regional title. Greenfield-Central isn’t overlooking Avon — they know they are in for a big challenge — but they also know that if they want to keep pushing toward the ultimate goal of a state championship, they’ll likely have to get past Zionsville.
“We’re a pretty confident group,” Murphy said. “We’ve all been playing with each other since we were little. I think we have it in us. Zionsville, we all know they are one of the best teams in the state, they’re going to be hard to beat. I think if we can pull through and get past them, I think we can make it pretty far.”
“I just think we’re more prepared this year than we ever have been,” Bell added. “We’re ready to go.”
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The Daily Reporter asked several of the Cougars seniors what it will take to get past the regional roadblock they’ve run into the past three years.
“It’s going to take all of us keeping each other accountable, working our hardest. With that, it means we’re going to be coming as a team and playing as fast and as good as we ever have.” — Zack Bell
“It’s going to take trust, discipline and just staying focused throughout the whole game.” — Trevor Sawyer
“I’d say just hard work that we keep putting in every day. We’ve gotta keep putting it in, keep striving, keep pushing, keep the trust and the passion to win.” — Jordy Phillips
“It’s going to take hard work, passion. We’ve been playing with each other forever so we know what it takes. We’ve been clicking. The saying we always say, ‘do what you do best,’ I think if we can do that and we work hard at it, we can go far.” — Tyler Murphy
“Just trusting each other and doing what we do. We’re clicking right now. Just don’t get away from what we’re doing. Everybody just do their own job. It’s been successful so far.” — Caleb Mundell
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Four teams head to Carmel on Saturday with hopes of making it to the Class 4A semistate round. Here’s how the No. 12 Greenfield-Central Cougars match up against Avon, and how No. 1 Zionsville matches up against Cathedral in the other regional semifinal.
Schedule
(all games played Saturday)
10 a.m. – No. 12 Greenfield-Central vs. Avon
12 p.m. – No. 1 Zionsville vs. Cathedral
7 p.m. – Championship
;Greenfield-Central;Avon
Record;18-1;12-6-1
Goals for;89;51
Goals against;10;21
How they got here
Greenfield-Central
Sectional opener: Beat Shelbyville 3-0
Sectional semifinal: Beat East Central 4-0
Sectional final: Beat Mt. Vernon 3-0
Avon
Sectional opener: Beat Decatur Central 8-1
Sectional semifinal: Beat Brownsburg 4-1
Sectional final: Beat Plainfield 1-0
;Zionsville;Cathedral
Record;17-0;9-8-2
Goals for;52;38
Goals against;7;35
How they got here
Zionsville
Sectional semifinal: Beat Carmel 2-1
Sectional final: Beat North Central 2-1
Cathedral
Sectional semifinal: Beat Franklin Central 3-2
Sectional final: Beat Lawrence North 1-0 (OT)
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