High school 2A soccer tournament: Manti defeats Wendover in shootout

MANTI — People said it wouldn't be able to do it, being an unseasoned, first-year team and all.

But the Manti High School boys' soccer team proved them all wrong Wednesday.

"Everybody's been telling us all season we'll never be able to beat the teams from up north, but we beat one today," said Manti coach Gerald Wayman, right after his team defeated the Wendover Wildcats in a shootout victory.

As a new team-only three years of community club soccer behind them before they were sanctioned by the Utah High School Activities Association this year, making it to the playoffs and through the first round was "a big accomplishment," Wayman said.

Manti came ready to play, and fact that it was cold, windy and even snowy toward the end didn't faze the Templars' players.

"We've been playing in that kind of weather all year, so we're kind of used to it," Wayman said.

Manti was impressive with the cohesiveness of its team and dominated the first half, outscoring Wendover 3-1.

Wayman said: "We played good team ball. We controlled the game. On offense we played pretty good."

On defense Manti played tough against a team that outsized them considerably. The best exhibit of that was junior Justin Bradley.

"He's a very solid defender. Relentless, that's a good word to describe him, even when he has to defend somebody twice his size-and that guy was. Our defense was strong," Wayman said.

In the second half, the Wildcats stepped up their play to keep up with Manti.

"We worked the ball well to where we had good opportunities. We had good attempts, but just missed a few where we needed to make a few," Wayman said.

Wendover scored twice in the second to tie up the score. Even then, Wayman didn't find much fault with his team.

On one of Wendover's goals, he said: "Our kids were in the right place, but the big No. 11 kid (Victor DeSantiago) just bowled over our kid to set up No. 6 (Nestor Luna)."

The other second-half Wendover goal, Wayman said, was due to the fact that there were only two officials rather than the usual three. He said there should have been an offsides call that wasn't called but probably would have been hade there been a third referee there to see it. The call would have prevented a Wildcat goal.