Marauders Halt Jesuit’s Postseason Run

By Randy Jennings / Contributor

LEWISVILLE — Longtime Jesuit Dallas soccer coach Charlie DeLong said he will remember this year’s team for one reason above all others.

“This group of players is the hardest workers I’ve coached,” DeLong said. “There was never a lack of effort. I asked of them one thing, can you give me effort? And all season, they did.”

But spirited effort was not enough to derail Flower Mound Marcus, which topped the Rangers 3-0 in a Class 6A Region I area round playoff game on Tuesday at Goldsmith Stadium.

The contest pitted two recent state champions. In head-to-head matchups with Marcus, Jesuit had won the previous two, the most recent coming in the Rangers’ march to the 2017 state title.

Six years later, the Rangers (10-5-6) had the misfortune of seeing potential goals strike the post in each half and bound harmlessly away.

“If just one of those goes in, everything changes,” DeLong said.

The longer the game went scoreless in the first half, the more the first goal gained importance. Cale Glover staked the Marauders (13-5-5) to a 1-0 lead with 13 minutes remaining in the first half. Just two minutes later, Jesuit was denied the equalizer by the post.

The 1-0 intermission advantage doubled just 1:16 after the restart when a slow bounding ball off the foot of Avery Estell found the net just inside the post for his first goal of the season. Later, Mamello Dube hustled to gain possession of a long pass in the box and took advantage of an open net by lobbing in the third goal with 26:42 remaining.

Just moments before the third goal, Jesuit goalkeeper Cole Hines had denied Marcus’ Carter Webb with a save.

“This group keeps finding ways to win,” said Marcus head coach Sam Garza, whose team upset previous unbeaten Prosper in the first round. “We have a really gutty group that keeps grinding.”

Garza said he has gone against teams coached by DeLong many times.

“We go way back,” Garza said. “That’s why I knew it would be a tough battle. Charlie has been around and he understands the game.”

Jesuit, which topped Arlington Sam Houston in the opening round, can build on this season’s success in 2024, when the Rangers will have 13 returnees including seven starters.

PHOTOS: Chris McGathey