For the first time in a long time, Siloam Springs' boys soccer team will not be heading to the postseason.
The Panthers were eliminated from postseason contention last week with a 2-1 loss at Greenwood on Tuesday, April 25, followed by a 3-0 loss at home to Russellville on Friday, April 28.
The Panthers fell to 3-13-3 overall with the loss and 3-6-3 in league play and in sixth place in the conference standings.
Meanwhile defending state champion Russellville improved to 17-2-2 overall and 11-0-1 in league play and on the cusp of the 5A-West Conference championship.
It was an odd juxtaposition for both teams, who are used to battling one another for conference and state titles.
"They've got a bunch of good athletes," said Russellville coach Jared Fuller. "They've got a new coach coming in and trying to figure out the system, winning those players over, a lot of new players coming in. They'll bounce back."
Russellville scored the game's first goal off a corner kick, which Fuller said was designed from a cornerkick that former Siloam Springs coach Luke Shoemaker used to run.
Alex Bonilla scored the goal for Russellville with 22 minutes, 56 seconds left in the first half.
"I put in a couple of Shoemaker's cornerkicks this week, because, hey he'll like seeing those, I knew he'd be there watching," Fuller said. "That's actually one of his cornerkick plays from a couple of years ago. He had a lot of good ones."
The game was 1-0 at halftime.
Arius Garcia and Jett Bull added goals in the second half for Russellville.
"We're finding goals from everywhere, possessing the ball really well," Fuller said. "I just hope we can keep scoring goals. That's the hard part."
The first goal was tough for the Panthers, said Siloam Springs coach Craig Moses, who thought the Panthers battled hard.
"They fought no doubt," Moses said. "First half we stuck with the game plan for the first 20 minutes. I thought we were in it. We just concede another set piece. That's four set pieces they got on us through the year."
Moses said the Panthers got their heads down a little after the first goal but "then we came back and kept fighting. Second half I thought we did well."
"We just got discombobulated on defense. Second goal they scored that was just a great cross and shot. Not much we could do. I thought we had people in position it was just they made a great play on that."
Freshman goalkeeper Layne Mason made several stops to keep the Panthers in it.
"Good stops," Moses said. "He's going to be all right. Good future with him. Just unfortunate for these seniors. They don't want to hear about future. They want to hear about now. Unfortunately for them now we're just playing for pride and playing for each other."
The Panthers wrapped up their home schedule on Tuesday against Van Buren. Results were not available at presstime.
Siloam Springs will play its final game of the season Friday at Harrison.
Mark Ross/Special to the Herald-Leader Siloam Springs goalkeeper Layne Mason, Uriel Padilla and Chris Cruz work defensively against Russellville on Friday. The Cyclones defeated the Panthers 3-0.