Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

SOLON – If the substate semifinal tilt between top-15 teams Solon and West Branch on Monday was a made for television event it would have been billed as the savvy veteran against the rising challenger.

A perennial top-10 program and state tournament contender, fourth-ranked Solon was the established team seeking another deep postseason run.

No. 14 West Branch filled the role of hot-shot challenger, an up-and-coming program riding a five-game winning streak in just its second varsity season.

Veteran solon coach Jeremey McMurrin saw it as something totally different – just two good soccer teams.

“They are a young program that’s great, we are a veteran program that’s great but it doesn’t matter it is who you have out on the field and they have good kids out there and we have good kids out there,” McMurrin said. “They are going to be a competitive program for a long time kind of like we have been.”

In what was certainly a battle of good teams Solon was a little bit better on Monday.

Dillon Bruck scored the go-ahead goal in the 71^st minute to lift Solon to a 3-2 win over West Branch in a Class 1A, Substate 4 thriller at Spartan Stadium in Solon.

The win sends Solon (13-5) in the Substate 4 title game against third-ranked Regina (10-7) on Wednesday in Iowa City while West Branch closed the season at 11-2.

“There is no pretty win column or ugly win column or close win column, it’s just a win column,” McMurrin said. “It doesn’t matter what you do, it doesn’t matter how you score as long as you have one more goal than they do this time of year that’s all that matters.

The second goal of the game for Bruck snapped a 2-2 tie and came after West Branch had pulled even for the second time on a goal by Peyton Miller.

“I was a little frustrated (after the tying goal) but you have to forget it and turn around and get another one,” Bruck said. “Nate (Ferguson) had a ball over top and the center back missed it and the goalie stepped out and I just popped it over him. Everything went blank after that I was just watching it go in.”

Bruck scored the first goal of the match on another through ball to give Solon an early 1-0 advantage.

West Branch, which survived a scare from Tipton in its substate opener on Thursday, evened the match when freshman Joe Hamman connected on a deep shot from 30 yards out.

A Gabe Yetley goal gave Solon a 2-1 lead at the half.

West Branch pulled even when Miller scored his 39^th goal of the season.

“He wasn’t 100 percent tonight but even not at 100 percent he is still very dangerous,” McMurrin said. “He is a heck of a player. I wouldn’t want to play him at 100 percent because he is a heck of a player.”

It stayed tied until Bruck got loose and chased down a deep pass from Ferguson before slipping a shot past charging West Branch keeper Cael Fiderlein.

“We all had confidence coming into this game, we thought we were going to play them well and we did,” West Branch coach Ted Miller said. “We played them well the entire game the difference between us and team like Solon is they have been playing together or a long time and you could tell, they were probably the best passing team I have seen all season.”

West Branch had a chance to tie the game for a third time in the final minutes but couldn’t convert from inside 10 yards and Solon held on.

“I thought it was going to come down to the wire, I actually thought it was going to be overtime,” Miller said. “I thought we were going to have a chance to win it and we did.”

Solon will get a second opportunity against Regina after falling to the Regals 7-1 on April 17.

“We need to connect passes and be quick and put them in the back of the net,” Bruck said. “We are excited to have that opportunity to play.”

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