RADFORD- A slow first half by the King William boys’ soccer team allowed defending state champion Radford to take a 2-0 lead at the half of the Group A state semi-finals. Though the Cavaliers played much better in the second period, they could not score against the Bobcat defense and fell 3-0 to end the best season in King William history.

  “Our second half was better than our first,” said King William head coach Klint Ruhlman. “We didn’t play as best we could the first half.”

  Radford got all the scoring they needed to win in the 13th minute of the first half when Collin Semple put the Bobcats ahead 1-0 by driving a shot past Cavaliers’ keeper Justin Hutchinson.

  The King William defense did a good job of keeping Radford off the scoreboard for a majority of the game considering most of the action took place with the Bobcats on attack. However with nine seconds to play, Radford put a dagger in the Cavaliers’ spirit when Lukas Findley scored on a free kick to put the Bobcats up 2-0 at the break.

  Despite the emotional setback, King William came out strong to start the second period of play and held Radford in a deadlock. But then Findley scored once more to put the Bobcats up 3-0 and virtually seal the game.

  “We did play them more the second half some of our energies were just taken out of us in many different ways,” Ruhlman said. “We played a strong second half, especially the first part of the second half.”

  In the waning moments of the contest, and the Cavaliers’ offense virtually nullified by Radford, Ruhlman’s thoughts turned to his players rather than winning the game and he started subbing liberally.

  “We just wanted to give everyone on the team a chance to play in a state game the last 15 minutes,” he said. “We just wanted to have everyone greet the field because that’s a moment that hopefully they’ll always treasure.”

  Though it may have appeared that Ruhlman was ceding defeat, he was in fact feeding fuel to his team’s fire for next season. “We’ve got a very young team as far as our depth,” he said. “We’ve got four freshman, lots of sophomores and some juniors that are going to support us on through. We only have three seniors on the team. We’ll be back and we plan to push it as far as we possibly can next year.”

  King William made it to the semi-final game by pulling off a 1-0 upset of George Mason in the quarterfinal round and advanced further than any other Cavaliers’ soccer team has gone. That game alone will provide the Cavaliers with lasting memories.

  “It’s been a wonderful season for King William, never been this far before and had a spectacular game to get right here,” Ruhlman said.

  Ruhlman will also provide his young team stability by returning as their coach next season. “I’ll be coming back,” he said, ending any speculation for a team that has undergone coaching transition before. “I’ll be needed to teach so I’ll definitely be coming back to coach too.”

  King William can find some solace in the fact that Radford went on to defeat Galax 4-0 in the championship game to repeat as state champions. The game also marked the third consecutive shut-out by the Radford squad.

  King William finished the season with a 9-4-2 record.

Radford—————————2 1—3
King William——————0 0—0
Saves: Giesen (R) 2; Bell (R) 0; Hutcheson (KW) 3