Benefield: Championship loss stings, but Sonoma County Sol looking ahead

Maybe the AFC Cleveland Royals didn’t take too kindly to the Sonoma County Sol’s Warriors t-shirts, because despite falling behind twice in the National Premier Soccer League title game, the Midwest-Northeast bracket winners would not stay down.

The Sol, who earned a spot in the title game by knocking off top-seeded Chattanooga on the road, could not put the game away despite taking the lead twice.

Final: Cleveland 4, Sonoma County 2.

The scenario made Sol forward Taylor Varnadore seem eerily prescient.

Before the Sol - a semipro outfit that features mostly local talent from area high schools, Santa Rosa Junior College and Sonoma State - took off for Cleveland, Varnadore said the team is more experienced coming from behind rather than holding the lead.

That played out painfully Saturday night.

The Sol scored first and twice went ahead, only to allow the Royals back into the match with equalizers. And then in the waning minutes of regulation, the Royals took the lead for the first time all night and followed it with another goal in stoppage time.

“No disrespect to Cleveland, they were a good team, but I think we all thought we were better,” coach Vinnie Cortezzo said. “It was disappointing. I think we really felt like we had a chance to get it done.”

It came down to what Varnadore talked about before the team even left for Cleveland: maintaining a lead.

“We were putting ourselves in good position,” Varnadore, a standout at Analy High and Sonoma State, said.

“We didn’t hold the lead very long,” he said.

It was the Sol’s story for much of the season. The team won the Golden Gate Conference title for the third time in four years but faced a much tougher road this season. They endured more league losses than they had in years and only qualified for the postseason with two must-wins in the final weekend of play.

“Mid-season, I thought, I haven’t lost this many games for Sol. We have had times when we have played two seasons where we haven’t lost two games,” Varnadore said. “It was a really up-and-down year.”

While the losses toughened the team’s mettle, it also made them frequent fliers in the postseason. They took red-eye flights to San Diego, Chattanooga and Cleveland on consecutive weekends. “Without a doubt, having to be on the road for three straight weeks took its toll,” Cortezzo said. “For the last two weeks we only trained once each week, and then on top of that, you get all that comes with the travel - red-eyes and long nights with basically little or no sleep.”

But despite the early season losses, despite the thousands of air miles logged in the final weeks of the season, the Sol found a way to peak at the right time, defeating some strong squads in their postseason run.

“A lot of these teams, we are playing against professionals, guys that are training four or five times a week, guys that are getting paid,” Varnadore said.

Nico Spann, a Sol veteran who played for Montgomery and Sonoma State, said this is one of the most talented groups put together in years.

“We really pushed the boundaries of how far we’ve been able to come,” he said.

And that is saying something in a league that runs the gamut from teams that pay players and support travel costs to a team like Sol, where players pay for the privilege to suit up in orange and blue and 30 guys show up to practices to push the level of competition and try to break into the starting 11.

“We are brothers,” Spann said. “At the end of the day, that’s the most important thing. Most people don’t even get to this game ... you can go over the shoulda, coulda, woulda, but at the end of the day, it didn’t go our way. It didn’t happen.”

It was a game the Sol thought they should have won. Missed chances to put the game away came back to haunt them.

And then there was the crowd.

Just a week removed from playing in front of 12,500 cheering and singing “Chattahooligans,” the Sol were treated to a different style of host in Cleveland.

Maybe Cleveland fans are still gloating over the Cavaliers’ NBA title. Or maybe it was the Sol’s tour of Cleveland wearing Warriors shirts. A tour they shared on social media in an attempt to gin up interest in the match.

“We really enjoyed our time in Chattanooga,” Varnadore, who scored both of the Sol’s goals Saturday night, said. “Yeah, they were chanting and yeah, it’s loud and hard, but Cleveland was really brutal. As loud as their fans were, they were ruthless toward us. They were yelling and throwing stuff at us. It was a tough environment to be in.”

“There was definitely talk from their crowd about doing to us what they did to the Warriors,” Cortezzo said.

Unfortunately, they did.

Like the Warriors, the Sol had the Royals on the ropes and couldn’t put them away.

“We felt like we had the majority of possession and the better of the game, but sometimes that happens,” Spann said. “They get those few moments and they capitalize on them.”

So the team that has been grinding since December, balancing day jobs and family, college teams and coaching commitments, will get some rest and try not to think of the “shoulda, coulda, wouldas.”

Because, like Varnadore said, “playing in the national championship game of the NPSL is not the worst thing in the world.”

Spann, too, focused both on the bright side of the season and what he expects in an even brighter season come December.

“We are the small little group from Sonoma County. To have as good of a team that we do going all the way to the national championship, that is an accomplishment for ourselves and our community,” he said.

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com, on Twitter @benefield and on Instagram at kerry.benefield.