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Southside almost made the three and half hour bus ride to Robbins pay off.

The 11^th seeded Seahawks (18-7) held #3 North Moore (14-4-2) scoreless for the first 60 minutes before falling 1-0 in the third round of the 1A state soccer playoffs Monday night.

“It was a great defensive effort on our part to hold them scoreless in the first half,” coach Jay Petty said. “Cristian Reyes came up with some big saves in goal and their goal came on a layoff that we defended well. The ball squeaked by our defense and rolled into the corner.”

Southside had chances toward the end of the match as Jonatan Trevino Perez had a breakaway with eight minutes left and Kenny Avila had a shot with 40 seconds left.

“We played a great 80 minutes of soccer, but it just didn’t fall our way at the end,” Petty said. “We had a great season and were playing our best at the end. We battled through some injuries, but put together a strong finish. We’ll miss our seniors like Kenny and Jonatan, who both have given us some great offensive play this year.  We are losing great defensive players like Brice Sosebee, Johnny Hickey and Cristian Cruz as Seniors as well.  We have a lot to build on for next year, and that’s what we will be looking to as we move forward.”

The Seahawks advanced to the third round for the second time in program history and Avila finished with 101 career goals, two behind program record holder Jairo Juarez, who graduated in 2019.