Mariner girls, Fort Myers, Naples, Canterbury boys striving for soccer state championships

Not many teams have the chance of repeating as state champions.

For the Mariner girls' soccer team, that dream is two games away.

The Tritons, down multiple players to injury, got past North Fort Myers 3-0 Tuesday night to clinch a spot in the Final Four for the second consecutive year. They'll take on Tallahassee Lincoln on the road on Friday night for a spot in the Class 5A State Championship game.

Should Mariner win, the Tritons would be the first Southwest Florida girls soccer team to make it to back-to-back state championship games.

"We're going into this one game at a time," Mariner coach Jami Hagy said. "Last year, we kept doing that and kept winning. This year, we seem to be doing the same thing. We're just trying to focus on us, not worry about anything else, and do what we need to do to get there."

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The lineup may have changed in recent weeks, but the formula hasn't for a team that started out the preseason ranked as the No. 1 team in the area. That started just over a week after their state championship win over Naples in DeLand last year.

"Whether they win state championships or not, they work hard," Hagy said. "In the offseason, they do their extra private training. They're showing up year-round. They play club. They know how to win. They want to win. It takes that mindset to even have a chance at this point. These girls have worked so hard for where they're at, and it's really great to see that hard work pay off for them.

"Right when we got out of that state championship run last year, they took a week off, and they were back in the gym hitting the weights hard again, training for the offseason. They got back to the grind quickly."

How hard is it to repeat?

You don't have to look far locally to find out how tough it truly is to win back-to-back state championships.

As the lone coach in Southwest Florida to lead his program to back-to-back state championship games, former Canterbury coach Kevin Schoensee has thoughts on the feat. In 2020-21, the Cougars hoisted their first winter boys soccer state title.

With very few seniors and a loaded junior class, that 2020-21 team was a year ahead of schedule. Many thought it would be the team in 2021-22 that would be hoisting a championship. That Cougars team got back to DeLand as expected, but Canterbury fell to Pine in a heartbreaker as the Knights won the game 3-2 in the final few minutes of regulation.

"It's very hard to repeat. Obviously, we found out last year," Schoensee said. "If anybody can do it, Jami and her staff, and that team can do it. They're phenomenal over there. I think you just want to make sure they maintain their discipline and maintain what they've done all year to get to the (regional) finals, to get this far.

"They know what to do. They've done it before, and hopefully, they're going to be able to do it again. I have a lot of faith in them."

With Schoensee having stepped aside and elevated to Director of Soccer Operations, it's Jared Rust who's leading the program. The first-year head coach was an assistant on the runner-up team a season ago and will look to lead the Cougars to a third straight state championship game.

Having conceded just six goals all year, a statewide low, Rust's system is working. It's resulted in 16 shutouts in 22 games played. No team has been able to score multiple goals against the Cougars.

"Early on in the year, we had so much change from last year to this year with our roster, and everyone was a little bit of a question mark in terms of what were we going to have," Rust said. "We knew we were going to have to rebuild a lot of pieces. We knew guys were going to have to step up and fill big roles. We've achieved that.

"We stacked progress on top of progress playing better and better soccer, and our run of having no goals conceded is giving us more and more belief to stay on the ball and keep playing well... . Our systems have been working, and we're excited for it."

Three boys soccer teams in the hunt

Southwest Florida boys soccer teams went a perfect 3-for-3 Wednesday night, as some of the area's best are still alive to capture state championships.

Fort Myers, Naples, and Canterbury remain alive. All three teams have prior state championship experience, with Fort Myers winning in their only appearance in 1999. Canterbury is 2-1, while Naples is 0-1. That loss came back in 1995, which was the last time the Golden Eagles won a regional championship until Wednesday night.

The Golden Eagles downed Osceola 2-1 and will travel to Tampa Jesuit in hopes of keeping their season alive. Senior forward Harvey Sarajian is on a journey to bring home the program's first state championship and believes his team is capable of doing so.

Sarajian has been the one constant this year on a Naples team with numerous personnel changes. The senior is up to 21 goals and 10 assists this season and was recently voted as the FACA Player of the Year for the Southwest Florida region.

"It's been my mission ever since I was a freshman," Sarajian said. "Every year I've been dissatisfied with what was happening year after year. I made it my priority to make it happen this year. The boys and I worked out all summer and really pushed ourselves to be great. It means a lot to me and I'm proud of the boys for pushing throughout the ups and downs throughout the season. We can celebrate now, but the job's not finished."

For Fort Myers and coach Chris Reid, it's his first regional title leading the Green Wave. With a massive senior class of 16 players, the time is now for Fort Myers to snap a state championship drought spanning two decades. The team will have an eight-hour bus ride waiting, however, as the Greenies will be playing Niceville Saturday night.

"I also thought Gulf Coast was going to be able to make it," Reid said. "When we had (the FACA) meeting, I was telling them that I hoped all four teams from this area could go to a Final Four. That shows how good this area is in soccer. I don't think they give us the rankings that we deserve. I thought Immokalee or Riverdale would've made it (the postseason). If Immokalee would've made it, I thought we would be playing Immokalee in the regional finals.

"They didn't give them the rankings. That's the way they do this area. They don't respect this area for soccer. We've got three teams in the Final Four."

Playing tough teams has been a key recipe for Canterbury. The Cougars played Naples during the regular season, losing 1-0 on a Sarajian goal. The two teams also faced in the preseason, and Naples blew out Canterbury, 5-2.

Playing a state-caliber team like Naples on two different occasions has been a key for the 2A school, as the Cougars don't get many chances to face a talented program locally like the Golden Eagles. A vast amount of progress has been made since that game, which includes five straight shutouts, and seven shutouts in Canterbury's last eight games.

"Naples was by far the most athletic, aggressive, fast group that we saw early on in the year," Rust said. "That first game, it was our first outing and the first time we played against an opponent. We knew it was going to be a rough day, most likely. But we needed to see what we had, what guys can go in what spots, and what it was going to look like. They ran us. Then we got to see them a few weeks later in the season, and it ended up being a 1-0 loss. Harvey, being a special player, had a special moment in that game and put one away. It was gorgeous.

"I love seeing them succeed. I think that game was big for us because we lost 5-2 the first time. Then we came back and played to a 1-0 loss. There was instant belief there."

− The News-Press sports reporter Dustin Levy contributed to this article

Follow Southwest Florida Sports Writer Alex Martin on Twitter: @NP_AlexMartin. For the best sports coverage in Southwest Florida, follow @newspresssports and @ndnprepzone on Instagram.

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Mariner girls, Fort Myers, Naples, Canterbury boys trying to win state titles