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Pleasant Valley bands together to win first-ever state title
Valley shutout all three opponents they faced in the state tournament on their way to a championship. (Courtesy: Wayne Ward)

Pleasant Valley bands together to win first-ever state title

RIVERDALE, Iowa (BVM) — As the Pleasant Valley high school boys soccer team drove home from James. W Cownie Soccer Park in Des Moines, Iowa, it was met with a surprise as it got closer to Riverdale. The Spartans were met with a police escort that led them back to the high school where people from the community were waiting to congratulate the boys on their accomplishment. 

Pleasant Valley was returning home state champions after making it to the IHSAA 3A state tournament for the first time in program history. It was a win for the boys, but also for a community that had supported them through the journey. 

“The adage of it takes a village to win and there is so much that has to go into being the champion,” Spartan head coach Wayne Ward said. “There is so much that goes in and it comes all the way down to making sandwiches for the boys, making sure that they’re eating right, making sure facilities are available, all of the stuff that goes into it, it shows you through the 11 to 12 weeks we’re together how much everyone cares for the program and cares for the boys.”

Assistant coaches, team managers, parents and many others all played a part in this first of what the team hopes is many more state tournament runs.

Pleasant Valley celebrating their state championship win. (Courtesy: Wayne Ward)

“The list is long … I’m just one of many that put the boys in this position and ultimately the boys executed,” Ward said. “It’s a total team community effort.” 

The work to get this point however, has been years in the making. Ward credits his predecessor, Corbin Stone, for getting the ball rolling when Ward took over the program four years ago and since then Ward has continued to get buy-in from his players. 

As they entered this season with the five seniors and an extremely strong junior class the goal was simple: get to the state tournament. 

“I think the goal at the start of the year was just to get to the state tournament,” Ward said. “Pleasant Valley has never been to a state tournament on the boys soccer side so that was really the goal to get there. Once we cracked that and we got there the rest was uncharted territory.”

The Spartans got off to a great start to that goal as they went 10-1 before losing back-to-back games to North Scott and Ankeny Centennial. But those losses and the earlier loss to Waukee allowed the Pleasant Valley time to reflect and the coaches made sure the boys did. 

“We as coaches have to fabricate the time to allow them to reflect and to allow them to talk about what happened,” Ward said. 

In this age of technology, it is easy to finish a game and immediately go right to your phone and with that you are already mentally away from the game. Ward and his coaching staff noticed this and made sure that the Spartans still worked out what happened in their losses which was necessary if they wanted to make a run come playoff time. 

As they entered substate play, the Spartans played well and beat Iowa City Liberty then Iowa City High for the second time in May to achieve the goal they had set for themselves at the beginning of the season. They had made it to state. 

Although they had had an impressive season, going 20-3, Pleasant Valley entered the tournament as the No. 6 seed with a quarterfinal matchup against No. 3-seeded Prairie. The Spartans didn’t care about the seeding and in fact welcomed what it set them up to do in the tournament. 

“We knew we were going to have to play No. 3, No. 2 and No. 1 seeds at sometime so why not give us the hard way to do it,” Ward said. “We’ll play No. 3 then No. 2 and then No. 1 and we’ll beat them all I guess.” 

That is exactly what they did. After beating Prairie 1-0, they then beat No. 2-seed Johnston in the semifinals 1-0 as well, setting up the newcomers for a state championship matchup with No. 1 -seeded Iowa City West. 

In the championship game, neither team was able to get the ball in the back of the net in the first half, and halfway through the second, the score was still 0-0. That’s when junior second team all-state midfielder Rhys Ward put the Spartans ahead with a beautiful goal from 35 yards out in the 70th minute.

The Spartans tough defense played a pivotal role in their success this season. (Courtesy: Wayne Ward)

From that point on, Pleasant Valley just had to do what they had done all season — play impeccable defense. The Spartans had shut out opponents 12 times during the regular season and in their five playoff games had only conceded one goal.

Ward will be the first to say that their plan for the postseason was not to win every game by just one goal. According to him, his heart can’t take it and he has enough grey hairs, but that’s how it worked out. Luckily for him, the defense is anchored by senior first team all-state goalkeeper Gabe Johnson who is supported by fellow senior second team all-state defenseman Jack Roemer and junior all-state honorable mention Dylan Ollendieck.

Along with that, Ward pushes all 10 players out their to make sure to stop the ball before Johnson has to make a save, even going as far as saying that he was a little worried Johnson made the all-state team because it meant he had to make some impressive saves and that the ball had gotten past the 10 other players.

Either way, Pleasant Valley held strong in the last 20 minutes of the game to receive its first-ever state title in their first ever state appearance. A win that they now hope to repeat after getting some much needed experience. 

“It was all a learning curve for us,” Ward said. 

It was a new experience, but both the coaches and the players now know what it’s like. With only five seniors leaving the program, next year will be full of familiar faces all with the same goal in mind: make it back to state.