Roosevelt soccer savored a spectacular Senior Night

​KENT — Try drawing up a perfect Senior Night on the whiteboard.

Make the weather warm enough for plenty of fans to come out but cool enough to keep the players comfortable.

Make the game competitive so that all of the fans stay engaged but make sure that the home team ultimately prevails.

Oh, and make sure a couple of seniors play starring roles in the victory.

Roosevelt boys soccer checked all of those boxes Thursday evening, creating a perfect Senior Night memory with its 2-0 victory over rival Ravenna.

​"It's been a pleasure to coach these seniors," Rough Riders coach Garyn Daniels said. "Senior Night always gets me because it's a lot of hard work."

The weather was perfect for their Senior Night, right around 70 and sunny at the opening kick.

A lively home student section chanted throughout the game.

"It's a school with a storied soccer tradition, and their community supports soccer really, really well," Ravens coach Matt Wunderle said. "So anytime we play there, we know that's going to be loud environment."

And after Ravenna and Roosevelt were knotted at the half, Rough Riders senior Alex Horak broke the stalemate with a goal past the drawn-out keeper off a fine pass from junior Amir Spratt, and senior Ben Young set the stage for a late insurance goal with his top-shelf shot that the keeper batted down but Spratt pounced on.

"He has a lot of confidence," Daniels said of Young. "He works hard on it. He's a kid that in practice, he will shoot that shot every single time, and so his technique is just outstanding and, yes, he hit a very nice shot."

Alex Horak makes immediate impression on Senior Night

Alex Horak came out firing Thursday.

Ten minutes into the game, the Rough Riders senior scorer knifed through a couple of defenders before ripping a shot just wide of the post.

Eight minutes later, a well-covered Horak, from the right tip of the box, took a single touch with his left foot and then fired away, somehow putting a laser on frame.

He also blasted a couple of menacing shots just over the bar.

Was he just fired up about Senior Night?

Nope, a couple of parents in the home stands said laughingly, that's how Horak always plays — with tremendous fervor to go with remarkable skill.

"He is very special, and I think because opponents know that, the last few games he's been double- or triple-marked," Daniels said. "So whenever he gets freedom to shoot, he's shooting, and so I've enjoyed the evolution of watching him play, but he's been that same player since freshman year. He's just very dynamic."

Ironically, Horak's goal, a simple touch off a fine pass from Spratt, was probably his third- or fourth-most impressive shot of the game, but that's the beauty of soccer.

You never know which shot will finally break the stalemate.

Meanwhile, Charlie Martin, another Roosevelt senior who moved from his usual spot in the midfield to the back line, played a key role in the Rough Riders shutting out the Ravens.

"He's just very comfortable back there because that's a position he played for me for many years," Daniels said. "So you try to utilize his size and I think that's the big thing that separates him is he's learned how to use his size and he eats things up in the air and so he's really one of those people that I can always rely on. He is as dependable as they come on our team."

Roosevelt's Class of 2023 leads the way

While the Class of 2023 took over the starting lineup for Senior Night, the Rough Riders' usual opening 11 is quite a bit younger, with four or five seniors starting on average. Daniels said he has been struck by the selflessness of the seniors who have come off the bench without complaint this season.

"It's a testament to those guys and their leadership because I know some of those guys would love to start," Daniels said. "When you can produce seniors that are okay with coming off the bench and still mentoring those younger players, that's what turns a good program over each year and that's what we're trying to do."

While Horak has started and starred for the Rough Riders for years, many of his fellow seniors had to wait their turn to play behind other loaded senior classes. Indeed, Roosevelt's Class of 2022 was similarly massive and full of talent. For many members of the Class of 2023, that meant they had time to polish their game against fierce competition in practice, which has paid off handsomely this season.

​"We've been very fortunate," Daniels said. "Having a big senior class allowed some of those kids to really grow and develop. We were able to not have to throw them in situations that maybe they would have struggled early on in their career, so they waited their turn. I think that's a big part of it is having to compete, having to wait your turn, having such depth that it pushes them."

Losing that massive senior class a year ago worried Daniels a bit.

But the Class of 2023 has filled the void, both on and off the field.

​"For those seniors to step up and start to fill that void of leadership, I think that's the biggest thing," Daniels said. "You lose 19 seniors, you're worried about leadership, but I've had some of those kids since they were in middle school, so I've been fortunate to have them for six years and it really shows because there's a lot of trust from me to them and vice versa."

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Roosevelt soccer savored a spectacular Senior Night