With a fourth place finish, Diamond Bar High School boys soccer team will not be heading to CIF playoffs for the first time since it joined the Palomares League.

Although the boys competed well in their tournaments, winning the Monrovia Tournament, they were unable to recreate the winning touch in league matches. The team went 4-4-2 in league, losing twice to league champion Glendora. Their last match against the Tartans was a close loss, going into overtime twice until Glendora scored the first and final goal.

“This is our first time in I don’t know how many years that we haven’t made CIF,” senior captain Nicholas Wong said. “I think pretty much every game that we played in league was a one goal deficit, whether a win or a loss, four games went into overtime. It’s just really frustrating.”  

The Brahmas lost many of the matches in the second half.  Head coach Kemp Wells believes that the losses were mainly due to mental errors rather than the players being physically unprepared for their matches.

“There’s a chance they have had problems in the second half because they weren’t in good enough shape,” Wells said. “But I don’t think our players really looked tired in the second half. Almost every goal in the second half, I can point and say that it was a mental mistake instead of a physical mistake.”

Although a loss of thirteen seniors sounds concerning, Wells said he is not overly worried about the lack of seniors next season. He foresees several JV players coming up to varsity, ready for games after some work on their reaction time. Wells also expects the starting underclassmen and those that come off of the bench to fill in the gaps they may be left after the graduation of seniors.

Defensive players such as juniors Nathan Lee and Dwight Ritchie as well as sophomore Irwin Chen are players that Wells sees stepping up and filling in the loss made by senior defenseman Peter Larcheveque’s graduation.

Sophomore goalie Ethan Lu will be another key player next year. Lu had started at the beginning of the year until senior Rajvir Dua surpassed the number of saves Lu made.

“If we have [Lee and Ritchie] that have started plus [Chen], we have three-fourths of our backline ready to go intact. And a goalie that I don’t think is that far off that started this year. So four fifths of our core defense,” Wells said.

The team had an injury free year compared to other years. Yet Wells was happy some of the younger players were able to get some playing time this year.

“I didn’t think that they would get a lot of time at the beginning of the year. They actually showed that they’re close, and they should be ready next year. It’s always nice to see some of those young players play,” Wells said.