Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

SOLON – The losing streak for Solon against rival Regina predated any players on the current Spartan roster by more than a decade.

Many of those players felt the full spectrum of what many of those setbacks against the perennial powerful Regals have been in a span of six weeks last spring.

Solon lost a 7-1 laugher to the Regals in the regular season last April and had its season end with a heartbreaking 3-2 loss in penalty kicks in the substate finals.

On Thursday Solon ended 15 years of frustration against the Regals.

Dillon Bruck scored twice and Solon broke open a close game with three second-half goals on its way to a 4-0 win over Regina (0-1) on a cold and snowy night at Spartan Stadium.

“Last year we lost twice to them and the first one was really motivating and the second one was the substate final and we were ready to go to state,” Solon senior William Wittich said. “For all of us after that this win means so much.”

Bruck, Wittich and freshman Keegan Conway scored goals for Solon (2-0) as the Spartans recorded their first win over Regina since 2007.

“We’ve played a lot of games against them and played a lot of good soccer against them over the years,” Solon coach Jeremy McMurrin said. “The confidence in the kids to see that grow throughout the game and believing in themselves and what we are trying to do, it was good to see it finally pay off for us.”

In preparation for Thursday McMurrin spent time pouring over the game tape of the substate final loss to the Regals.

What the veteran head coach saw when he watched was missed opportunities.

“We watched that game a lot yesterday and realized how many opportunities we had that game and just gave the ball away freely,” McMurrin said. “We thought if we took care of the ball that we could be pretty successful and it worked.”

Solon not only possessed the ball better on Thursday it cashed in on its scoring chances.
After a missed opportunity or two early Bruck gave the Spartans a boost with a blast from outside the box with 10:05 left in the opening half.

The fifth goal for the season for the senior standout gave Solon a 1-0 lead halftime lead and more importantly momentum on a cold and windy evening.

“It was good to get the ball rolling,” Bruck said. “That gave us some confidence and after that we just had to finish it.”

Finish the Spartans did.

Conway scored on a nice feed into the box from sophomore Eli Freerks with 31:24 left to give the Spartans some breathing room.

Wittich added a goal less than eight minutes later before Bruck put the finishing touches on the win with his second goal of the match on a penalty kick with 16:55 left.

“We talked about it after the game and coach asked if we knew how long it had been since we beat them and he told us it had been since 2007,” Bruck said. “That’s kind of crazy.”

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