High school soccer season starts with a spectrum of goals and milestones

Juneau’s two boys high school soccer teams have won the last three state titles — including playing against each other two years ago — but as they faced off again Tuesday in this season’s opening game both squads are facing challenges in their quests for another championship.

Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé, the reigning two-time defending champion, won Tuesday’s battle with a 4-0 victory over Thunder Mountain High School, but coach Gary Lehnhart said afterward a lot of key seniors from last year’s team are now elsewhere and the game showed there are plenty of areas for improvement.

“We played individually, we dribbled too much, we didn’t play as a group,” he said. “And I think some of that came with the frustration of creating opportunities early and not scoring. And so then we started trying to do it ourselves. And then we just really slowed down. But give them credit. They competed, they never gave up and they kept making it hard for us. Their goalkeeper (senior Dawson Menz) I thought had a good game and definitely made it difficult for us.”

TMHS, who won the title in 2021 before losing the championship match to JDHS in 2022, has an extra element of motivation and pressure as it seeks to regain top status: this will be the team’s final season due to the merging of all students in grades 9-12 into JDHS next fall as part of a districtwide consolidation plan. The Falcons fell short of making the state tournament last year, but coach Tim Lewis said he feels optimistic about this year’s team despite the opening-game loss.

“We’ve got a team that I’m expecting to do better than our record last year,” he said. “I think we’ve got a bunch of guys who have got a year of experience under their belts. We’ve got a lot of seniors with a lot of maturity there. So I think I’m expecting a higher level of play.”

One common element for the teams is a high number of players on the rosters.

“We’ve got a very large roster, our largest roster we’ve ever had,” Lewis said. “So it’s kind of exciting. I wish I had a lot of these guys when they were freshmen. We have over 20 seniors. There’s a lot of guys who just want to finish strong.”

Lehnhart said that while he lost several seniors from last year who were essentially coaches as well as players on the field, this year’s team has a surprisingly high number of seniors.

“We got this strange influx of players who had never played before who showed up this year to play,” he said. “So we actually have like 12 (to) 14 seniors, but I think eight or 10 of them didn’t even play last year. So it’s a completely new group, and a couple of then played tonight and did OK.”

Conditions during Tuesday’s game matched the spectrum of elements the teams are encountering this season, ranging from sunny to drizzle to heavy rain to a brief flirtation with snow. At one point a rainbow stretched over the field, with one endpoint as seen from the teams’ vantage point landing on the Falcons’ net as the Crimson Bears scored one of their goals.

JDHS’ Kai Ciambor, a junior, was the star of the game by scoring the first three goals of the game, plus an assist to Ahmir Parker, a junior who scored the fourth and final goal for the Crimson Bears.

The Crimson Bears controlled the game while taking a 2-0 lead during the first half, keeping the ball mostly on the Falcons’ side of the field and putting Menz to the test with a multitude of shots. The game turned into more of a standoff during the second half with both teams missing opportunities, although JDHS was able to press its advantage enough for Ciambor to get his hat trick goal midday through and Parker to score as the closing minutes approached.

The teams’ next game will be a rematch against each other at 5:15 p.m. April 16 at JDHS.

• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.

More photos from Tuesday’s game: