WASECA — The Falcons were banged up, undermanned and could seemingly never catch a break. They wouldn’t extend their season Monday night, but they never quit and even in a loss, showed character.

The Faribault High School girls soccer team lost 1-0 to No. 3 seed Waseca in the first round of the Section 2A tournament and while it will go down as the game that ultimately ended what on paper was a long and unforgiving season, it might’ve been the team’s best game of the year.

“It’s frustrating when you play so well and to not get results,” said head coach Maddie Justin. “It’s hard. We just played for each other and we’ve been waiting on that all season. We’ve had good games throughout the year, I think tonight we were just playing a different type of game and working for each other. It’s hard that it came together on the last game.”

“It’s sad to see the season end,” said junior defender Rachel Hanson. “We played really well and we can’t be disappointed with that. There’s always more that we could’ve done but we played our best game of the season and we proved that we can play with good teams like this any given night.”

The Bluejays went into the game averaging 3.5 goals per game and got one early when Averi Dahlberg hit the bar on a free kick from about 30 yards out. Jayde Pederson picked up the rebound near the net and scored on a header to put Waseca up 12 minutes into the game.

Waseca had chances to score throughout the first half but the Falcons defense hung tough and Olivia Williamson played her finest game of the season as well. Williamson was decisive throughout the night on pursuing through balls and it saved FHS on several occasions.

Despite surrendering several prime scoring chances, the Falcons never gave in and continued to grind defensively.

After falling behind 1-0 and after losing 13 games in the regular season, it would’ve been easy for the team to mail it in and let the season end quietly. The Falcons didn’t though, and they gave the Bluejays everything they wanted and then some.

“We played really well,” said senior midfielder Mary McCoshen. “We gave them a great run. We just couldn’t put it in the net.”

What doomed FHS was the fact that the Falcons simply couldn’t control enough possession in the game and when they needed to mount an attack, they were left continually chasing Waseca players with the ball.

Some of that might have been depth as the 14th-seeded Falcons only had one sub throughout the night and some of it simply might have been a speed advantage that the Bluejays had.

Audrea Calderon played perhaps her best game of the season offensively as she and Mercedes Huerta-Mata gave the Falcons a few solid scoring opportunities in the second half. They had small windows of opportunity to get behind the Waseca defenders that weren’t pressing up into the offensive zone and when they weren’t able to, the Falcons offense struggled to put much together.

“This was our best game by far,” said Calderon. “We definitely pulled together at the end and gave it our all. We don’t win so it doesn’t show but we’re playing better than we ever have.”

It’s been that kind of year for FHS. A lot of injuries and a lot of things that went against the Falcons that were simply out of their control. The things that they could control, they did well though and while the season ended Monday night, it’s a team that has a lot to be excited about regarding the future. There are still good young players all over the roster.

They’ll lose valuable seniors in McCoshen, Sheima Lara, Calderon and Mary Hillesheim and figuring out how to replace them will be a challenge. But Justin has the Falcons moving in the right direction.

“It’s really tough, I think, more and more years that I coach, I get more connected to each group,” said Justin. “I’ve had them for two years; it’s hard to see them go. I don’t know how we’ll replace them moving forward. Each of them brings a different personality and style to our team. So we’ll miss them so much.”

A loss in the first round of sections might end signal the end of a difficult 2016 season. But the experiences from the year will help shape the whole team going forward.

“Our program is rebuilding,” said Hanson. “You can see we are so much better. Even if the stats don’t show it, we feel like we are a lot better.”

“This is a young team and there’s a lot of room for improvement” said McCoshen. “But they’ve got a lot of upside and they’ve got an advantage of getting a lot of playing time and experience now. When this group gets a little older, they’ll be right up there.”

Waseca 1, FHS 0

WHS 1 0 — 1

FHS 0 0 — 0