SAN FRANCISCO — A longshot just to make the North Coast Section Division I boys soccer playoff field, the Clear Lake Cardinals closed out their season, and along with it the coaching career of Shaun Hornby, with a 9-1 loss to No. 3 seed International at Kezar Stadium on Wednesday night in San Francisco.
The goal scored by Clear Lake’s Ulices Valencia right before halftime to cut International’s lead to 4-1 was only the fourth goal allowed by the Jaguars (13-1-2) this season.
“This is the only game they play all season, 12 months a year, four years of high school,” Hornby said of the International players. “We play three months out of the year. Still, I’m really proud of the kids. They kept their heads up.”
Clear Lake made a late surge to reach the Division I playoffs as an at-large team in Hornby’s 20th season of coaching, most of that spent with the Cardinals.
“Paul Larrea asked me if I wanted to coach (the junior varsity girls) in 1999,” Hornby said. “I’ve been coaching ever since (the last six with the varsity boys). Enough is enough. If they want me to help out, I’ll probably do that, but not as a head coach.”
Clear Lake closes out the season at 7-11-3.
In other boys soccer action Wednesday:
Arcata 7, Lower Lake
At Arcata, for the third time in the last four seasons the Arcata Tigers have not only ended Lower Lake’s season, but they’ve done it in shutout fashion in the opening round of the Division I playoffs.
“They’re kind of like our kryptonite,” said first-year Lower Lake coach Marcus Humphrey, who wasn’t around for 2-0 losses in 2016 (at Lower Lake) and 2017 (at McKinleyville).
Arcata (9-3-3), the No. 5 seed in the 14-team Division I field, advances to the quarterfinals later this week while No. 12 Lower Lake finishes the year at 7-8-3.
“They played extremely well given the circumstances,” Humprhey said. “Losing some players to grades was kind of hard and switching coaches in the middle of the season, that took some getting used to.”
Paul Krohn opened the season as Lower Lake’s head coach before being replace by Humphrey, who is also Lower Lake’s new varsity boys basketball coach. “Overall I’m extremely happy with them. We had (the minimum) 11 guys for some of our games or a minimal bench in others.”
Lower Lake suited up 13 players for Arcata and trailed 4-0 at halftime.
The Trojans’ path to securing an at-large berth for the playoffs was no routine mattergas the team barely made the deadline to submit its application to the North Coast Section because of the PG&E power shut-off that paralyzed the county for the better part of a week.
“We had to find a place to send it in,” Humphrey said. “We had to find a hot spot for one of our phones … I think we (Humphrey and athletic director Sarah Fuchs) had one bar while sending it in.”
Added Humphrey, “I’m glad we were able to get the at-large, especially for our seniors. I was happy with the season, happy with the team.”
