Injuries to key players and an inability to finish spelled doom for the Aberdeen boys soccer team as the Bobcats suffered a season-ending 1-0 loss to WF West in the 2A District 4 Tournament on Saturday in Aberdeen.

Missing several players due to injuries, including leading scorer Miguel Martinez and his fellow senior co-captain Logan Sias, Aberdeen failed to find the back of the net despite owning the majority of possession and scoring chances.

Aberdeen (12-4-1 overall) began the game playing with an urgency befitting the win-or-go-home nature of the elimination game. The Bobcats controlled the pitch and pace of play over the first 25 minutes of game time, but failed to cash in on several offensive chances deep in Bearcats territory.

WF West (11-8) settled into the game with 15 minutes left in the first half and began to get time in the Aberdeen defensive third, getting balls through to Bobcats keeper Antonio Granados, whose right wrist was heavily taped as he was dealing with his own nagging injury.

After a scoreless first half, it was WF West that put pressure on the Bobcats early in the second, with two shots on goal in the first five minutes.

Aberdeen countered with some dangerous chances of their own over the next 10 minutes, preventing Bearcats defenders from clearing balls in front of the WF West net.

But the Bearcats defense held, blocking and deflecting any Aberdeen shots inside the WF West 18-yard box.

A dangerous Aberdeen chance came with just under 10 minutes left in the half when senior forward Kaleb Myers took a hard, angled shot from inside the penalty area. Myers’ shot bounced off the chest WF West keeper Haden Sciera, who quickly pounced on the rebound to end the chance.

RYAN SPARKS | THE DAILY WORLD Aberdeen’s Kaleb Myers (11) and WF West’s Isaac Madrigal battle for possession in the midfield during the Bobcats’ 1-0 loss in a 2A District 4 Tournament elimination game on Saturday at Stewart Field in Aberdeen.

Then disaster struck for Aberdeen when Bearcats junior forward Cody Pennington took the ball up the wing and sent a low shot that skipped past a diving Granados and tucked inside the post for a 1-0 lead in the 74th minute.

Aberdeen had its chances over the final five minutes of play, including a great chance on a header by junior midfielder Carlos Mendoza and a shot by junior midfielder Gilberto Lopez that clanged off the crossbar in the game’s final minutes.

The referee’s whistle blew, sending WF West to the 2A State Tournament and signaling the end of Aberdeen’s season.

“As the game went on, I felt pretty comfortable,” said Aberdeen head coach Larry Fleming, whose team defeated WF West in two league meetings this season. “We were getting lots of opportunities and controlling the ball better. … They had very few shots on-goal and we had a bunch. … But that’s what happens when you keep teams in the game. If you don’t finish when you have that many chances, you give the other team a chance.”

Fleming added that the injuries caught up to his team with the season on the line.

“We had a lot of guys that maybe didn’t have a lot of experience in scoring and the one guy that did have the experience (Martinez), was hurt. It’s bad luck,” he said. “We had chances and you can’t hope for anything but playing well and giving yourself a chance to win, and we had chance after chance.”

Though the season didn’t end with a state-tournament berth as he had hoped, Fleming said this Bobcats team was a step forward for the program.

“It was a definite improvement over last year. I thought we improved a ton,” he said. “We were a game out of first place … But we just have to take that next step and we have a pretty young team still.”

WF West 0 1 — 1

Aberdeen 0 0 — 0

Scoring

First half — none.

Second half — 1, WF West, Pennington, 74th minute.