The varsity boys’ soccer season started off with a bang when the Cougars defeated the BV North Mustangs 5-4. After a few more wins, the team lost a heart-breaking double overtime game to Rockhurst. Two more consecutive losses followed, giving the Cougars a 5-6 record and a bleak outlook on the rest of the season.

“You know, that was kind of gut-check time right there,” coach Todd Boren said at the end of the season. “That was going to be the time that the season was either going to completely implode, or we were going to try to screw our heads back on and get after it.”

The boys rebounded impressively, winning eight of their last nine games, including upsets over number one seeds Olathe East in regionals and Olathe South in the state quarterfinals. In the semifinal game, the exciting run ended with a loss to the eventual state champions, Washburn Rural.

The Cougars rebounded from the loss and defeated Dodge City the next day, 2-0, to earn the third-place trophy.

“I didn’t really expect to do as well as we did this year,” senior Jon Kankam said. “I thought maybe we’d make it to state, but I definitely didn’t think that we would end up making it to the final four.”

Ross Whitmore places second at wrestling state

The top wrestlers in Kansas traveled to Wichita’s Intrust Bank Arena for the state tournament on Feb. 26 and 27. The Cougars placed 21st in the state competition, but the real story was how well their top-ranked wrestler junior Ross Whitmore performed. Whitmore placed second at the state competition, with a 3-1 record. For the entire season, he posted a 41-3 record.

“I actually had a good feeling that I was going to make the finals. I was ranked in the top two the entire year, and I trained hard all season for it,” Whitmore said.

Whitmore had one of the best individual performances of any Cougar athlete this season.

“When it was all over, I felt good.” Whitmore said. “Last year I placed sixth, so I was able to jump up four spots.”

With one more season ahead of him, Whitmore has the chance to improve next year.

Adam Giacalone pitches two perfect games

Senior pitcher Adam Giacalone threw the first perfect game in Shawnee NW history on April 20, 2010. In seven innings, the Cougar hurler struck out 14 of the minimum 21 batters faced to lead Northwest to a 5-0 victory against Olathe East.

Only 77 pitches (61 of them being strikes) were needed for Giacalone to do something no one in the school’s history had ever done.

“I was working the zone pretty well, and when they made contact with the ball, my defense was always there to back me up,” Giacalone said following the first game.

Just two weeks later, on May 3, Giacalone threw another perfect game, leading the Cougars to a 10-0 victory against Leavenworth.

“It was a really awesome feeling knowing I had done something no one else had ever done,” Giacalone said. “But I’m still focused on one main goal: winning a state championship.”

According to Boren, forward Mollie Slechta looks like a promising contender for leading goal scorer, replacing Taylor Isenhower. As for the two captains who left, Isenhower and Morgan Knight, seniors Sydney Jones and Haylee Allen are showing promise.

“Haylee has been stepping up and being a leader out on the practice field by organizing the girls,” Boren said.

Jones is a fourth year varsity player with experience.

“As a player, I need to control the middle, stay focused on the game and push everybody else to do their best,” Jones said.

Another problem Boren is facing is that the two goal keepers, senior Jenni Pinkelman and freshman Chloe Weishaar, are battling for the starting position.

“It’s not that they’re playing poorly,” Boren said, “It’s just that they’re not really separating themselves from the other one saying, ‘Yeah, I’m the one who’s going to start.’”

Boren is pushing the team to win the games they can and to come together to win the tougher games.

“If we finish under fourth in the league, I’m going to be disappointed,” Boren said, “I’ll see it as an underachievement.”

The girls’ team began the season last night at Shawnee Heights. They play Topeka West and Olathe NW next Monday and Tuesday, respectively, at the SMSD soccer fields across from Oak Park Mall.

-Tyler Gilliam

It was an electrifying feeling. Everybody knew the game was over; it was only a matter of time. The Cougars had a 2-1 lead over the number one seed Olathe South Falcons with only seconds left on the clock. Senior Lippi Souza started his victory sprint toward the packed Cougar faithful fan section, tearing off his jersey. As the final seconds ticked off the clock, a Falcon player fell to his knees in disbelief, realizing that his hopes of a state championship had been squashed by the one team that nobody thought stood a chance, the team that continued to defy all expectations.

That seemed to be the theme all year for the Cougars­ — never say never. During summer conditioning, it seemed as though there was an air of uncertainty hovering around the upcoming season; who were going to be the leaders this year? Who was going to step up to fill the shoes of the many seniors that were lost from last year?

“With the group of guys we lost last year, we were just wondering if these guys were going to be able to step up and fill their shoes,” coach Todd Boren said.

After losing an overtime battle to the nationally ranked Rockhurst Hawklets on Sept. 28, the team dropped two more games and seemed to have lost its way.

“You know, that was kind of gut-check time right there,” Boren said. “That was going to be the time that the season was either going to completely implode, or we were going to try to screw our heads back on and get after it.”

The team came together and decided that they would not let the season go down in the record books as a failure. On their way to a third place finish at state, the Cougars upset two number one seeds­­ — Olathe East in regionals 1-0 and Olathe South in the quarterfinals.

“We really came together as a team and realized that we had the potential to be really good,” junior Kyle Moore said.

Throughout the season, and well into the postseason, the NW fans gave a huge boost to the Cougars. At almost every game, the designated fan section spilled over into the rest of the bleachers. The NW fans outnumbered opponents’ fan sections.

“It was really fun going to the games this year. I loved going; there were always tons of people there,” senior Tyler Amble said. “As a fan you could kind of feel the team’s momentum. Every time the team won, we would all go crazy. It was awesome.”

Going into the season, the expectations had been relatively low, which may have contributed to the team’s success. After a shaky start to the season that left the team with a losing record, 5-6, a 7-0 win against SM South sparked a surge of momentum that would carry the boys to the end of the season.

After upsetting the number- one-seeded Falcons, the Cougars went on to the state semifinals to play Washburn Rural High School. Washburn was 17-1 at the time, losing only to St. Thomas Aquinas. The Baby Blues had beaten the Cougars earlier in the year, and the eventual state champions had the speedy and slender team outsized and outmatched.

Despite the largest turnout of the year from the NW faithful, it was the first time in five games that senior Jon Kankam was not able to do a post-game victory back flip, as the Cougars fell 3-1.

Sticking with the theme of the season, the dejected boys wiped away tears of sorrow to prepare for the consolation game the next day. They came out with kicks of fury, beating the Dodge City Red Demons 2-0, and taking home the third place trophy. But after the miracle run they had made in the postseason, third place seemed like a letdown to some of the Cougar players.

“It’s frustrating getting this far and then not getting to the championship, you know, because that’s where everyone wants to be. We began the season with expectations to win the league. That didn’t work out, but we came out in the postseason, and we really started clicking at the right time,” senior Lippi Souza said. “Overall, I guess I’m happy with the result that we got in the end.”

Senior Sam Mccrillis launches a shot from just outside the 18 box. Mccrillis had two goals in the Cougars victory.

defeating Shawnee Mission North Indians 3-0. The Cougars came flying out of the gates, quickly taking possesion and furiously attacking the Indians defense. Senior Eric Haun scored the first goal of the night within ten minutes, followed shortly by a goal from senior Sam Mccrillis. Neither the Northwest players nor coaches were satisfied with the team’s performance, though. The Cougars seemed cursed as shot after shot was either stopped by the Indian’s defense, or just narrowly off target.

“It was frustrating because we came out in the first ten minutes and put two goals up, and then we went flat.” Coach Todd Boren said of the Cougars sloppy finishing.

“We don’t come out and execute the things that we talked about in practice, and we don’t execute the things we talked about on the board before the game. First ten minutes we did, with positive results, then we go back to our bad habits.”

But a win is a win and the victory gives the Cougars points in the league standings, which become even more critical when they reach the tougher part of their schedule later in the season.

“On a positive note, this gets us back to two and two (record), and gives us momentum moving forward.” Boren said.

“Second half I thought we came out and played a lot more aggressively, we did a lot better job moving the ball around. We still have a lot of things to work on, but that will come eventually.”

Unfortunately, the Cougars may be without junior midfielder Adam Zoellner, who went down with an apparent broken collarbone in the second half. Zoellner was a crucial part of the Cougars defense and the team will have a hard time finding a replacement.

The Cougars will have to solve these issues while still riding on the wave of momentum from their victory before they face the Lawrence High Lions on Saturday, at 7 pm.

The Cougars defense was stout for most of the game, but the Panthers capitalized on the few opportunities they had to score.

The Cougars lost to the Park Hill South Panthers in a heated battle for third-place in the Olathe East Tournament, 2-1. The Cougars dominated possession for the most part, even doubling the Panthers in shots on goal. But the Northwest squad could not capitalize on any of the opportunities they had offensively. The game went into overtime with the score tied at 1-1, and the Panthers dominated the extra period, quickly taking possession and never giving the Cougars a chance.

“Were not executing the final pass, and the final third,” Coach Todd Boren said of the Cougars to profit from their offensive drives. “There were a couple of times when it was there, and they had some good defensive stops. Frankly, sometimes maybe one of our guys needs to work a little harder to establish position, get on the inside of the defender, and try to score. We had tons of through balls and tons of looks but they shut us down inside the 18.”

The team was without sophomore starting midfielder, David Fancher, but the Cougars welcomed the return of senior Brendon Fisch, who contributed on both the offensive and defensive ends of the field. Senior Bobby Hoelting scored the Cougars only goal on a beautiful feed from senior Jon Kankam late in the second half. But the Cougars had many close calls on the offensive end. Senior Sam Mccrillis had multiple shots on goal, as did other Cougar attackers. Most notably was sophomore Bill Kolega who took advantage of his first varsity showing, nearly scoring on a breakaway midway through the first half.

The Northwest squad finished fourth overall in the Olathe East tournament, taking home plenty of experience and learned a lot about themselves as a team.

“You know, it has to be one of those thing where mentally, we have to have guys step up.” Boren said of the remainder of the Cougars season. “And I hope that’s something they learn from this, that we have guys coming up from junior varsity, the game is faster, they are going to have to play sharper, and its just little mistakes that are going to hurt us.”

The Cougars open up regular season play this Thursday against Shawnee Mission North at SMAC, 7pm game time.

Both teams played a physical game forcing the referees to intervene several times. Falcons’ defender Kyle Vassar drew a yellow card with 15 minutes left in the first half, just one example of the physical play of both teams. The Cougars were the perpetrators of two fouls in the penalty box during the second half, both resulting in penalty kicks. But senior goalie Shawn Miles came up with yet another pair of huge saves to keep the Cougars from falling behind by two goals.

Later in the second half, the Falcons scored again on a tap-in off a well-executed crossing pass play, putting them ahead 2-1 with 16:45 left to play. The Cougars nearly scored on a header with 10 minutes remaining, but they failed to control the ball long enough to set up any kind of offense for the remainder of the game.

“We’ve got some guys that we need to iron out a little bit. I think we just need to move the ball faster. And we’ve got guys holding on to the ball a little too long, allowing the defense to collapse on us and close the passing lanes.” Coach Todd Boren said. “If we could just play one or two touch soccer, I think the result would have been a little different tonight.”

The Cougars will face the Park Hill South Panthers on Saturday for third place. The Panthers are also 1-1 in the tournament, with a win over Olathe Northwest and a loss to Olathe East, who will play Olathe South for the championship.

“We’ve got guys who are banged up, so we’ll be going pretty light tomorrow when we try to iron some of these issues out. But it isn’t something that can be fixed in one practice, it’s going to take two, three, four practices before we get it fixed.” Boren said of the upcoming game against the Panthers.

The Cougars will play at 10 a.m. on Saturday at CBAC (east field). For directions to CBAC, click here.