Crimson Bears place fifth in state soccer championships

This story has been updated with additional information.

Physically and emotionally spent the Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé Crimson Bears boys soccer season came to an end at the 2025 ASAA/First National Bank Soccer State Championships consolation game for third or fifth place on Saturday at Colony High School in a 5-0 loss to the pre-tournament favorite Knights.

“We had nothing left,” JDHS coach Gary Lehnhart said. “I knew in the morning when we went through the walk-through that Kai (Ciambor) was finished, his body wasn’t going to react and he took a lot of punishment. He took a lot of punishment, he was a marked man.”

“And I think with Amir (Parker) being hurt and not posing his usual dangerousness, teams pulled off him and gave Kai even more attention. And I also think that was the strategy from teams, he was in trouble, Reed Maier was in trouble. He had dislocated his shoulder in the first game and had played the second game in a lot of pain and he ended up playing Saturday but he was a shadow of himself. And I finally just said that’s not worth it. Troy (Edgar) got injured, played through it to finish the game Friday, but he couldn’t go Saturday. And then early on in the game we lost Emmett (Mesdag) and Eric (Thompson) to injuries.”

In the end the Crimson Bears played until their bodies gave out and those still on the pitch played until the final whistle’s echo was overshadowed by opponent’s cheers.

So it was very apparent that they had played to exhaustion,” Lehnhart said. “Two overtime games back-to-back and then they have to come back and play a morning game. The only place they’ll do that is in Alaska. And they have to because of the expense of traveling and of staying in hotels, there’s no way around it…there’s really nothing to do to change it, but it’s not healthy. And if we had played in the final, if we have been fortunate to come out with a win on Friday night, and we had to answer the bell Saturday night, the extra hours would have helped, but I don’t know. I think we still would have been in huge trouble.”

“What it showed me was how hard they’ve played to win those games and especially for guys that many of whom played in JV at the beginning of the year. Elliott Welch, phenomenal. Just to come up here and start the season with a JV uniform and by the end of the year, he’s up against the state’s best attackers and playing them one-versus-one straight up, very impressive. Yeah, so it didn’t go well Saturday, but overall I am really proud of the kids. They had a fantastic season.”

In the tournament’s championship game the West Anchorage Eagles defeated the West Valley Wolfpack 2-1 in a penalty shootout for the state title.

“West had 22 players on the bench and we took them to the second overtime and almost scored to send it to a third overtime,” Lehnhart said. “So we weren’t that far off, very close.”

JDHS had fallen 3-2 in Friday’s semifinal to West in extra time, coming from a two-goal deficit in the first half to tie the score on a goal by Bryce Haygood and a penalty kick by senior Kai Ciambor in stoppage time to extend the game to two extra 10-minute halves. West had two goals from senior Noah Robinson, his second in the last extra session on a free kick that beat the JDHS wall, and one from junior Luca Driscoll. JDHS senior Ryan Thibodeau had earned the team’s Lunch Pail Award for his play.

JDHS had opened tournament play Thursday with 110 minutes of soccer against Service that left the score tied at 1-1 and needed penalty kicks to win. Service had led 1-0 after 40 minutes and JDHS tied the game in the second half by pressuring the Cougars into an own goal and neither team could score in two 10-minute extra halves and two sudden-death halves of five minutes each.

In the shootout Ciambor, senior Ahmir Parker, sophomore Sonny Mazon, senior Kellen Chester and senior Owen Rumsey hit their five attempts and the first four were answered by Service junior Brayden Fett, senior Mason Tremarco, freshman Mark Stacy and senior Bjorn Von Wichman. The Cougars’ final attempt by senior Matej Omalley was stopped by JDHS freshman keeper Callen Walker who earned the team’s Lunch Pail Award.

Lehnhart stated that the underclassmen had a lot to look up to this season and played up to their potential as the games progressed.

“No question that there was nothing but good to be able to have the experience of playing in games that matter like state and seeing the environment like last night,” Lehnhart said of bringing the team to watch the tournament’s title contest. “That game went to overtime as well and it was just a pretty electric environment, good soccer. And I know a lot of the guys, I think what it showed them when they saw the level of play in the final was, ‘Wow, we were playing at that level.’”

“So it certainly should give a lot of confidence to them and then when you add some of the players that we lost to injury that are coming back, that will help to overcome the loss of some of the players we’re losing. So I think everybody feels pretty good about where the program’s at. We had a pretty good blending. Didn’t seem to have any issues, so I think the whole TM/JD thing is over. And for us, it was over pretty quickly. I think other sports, maybe not, but for us the kids blended well and I am excited to see the new crop come in.”

• Contact Klas Stolpe at klas.stolpe@juneauempire.com.