PHOTO OF THE DAY: BEST FEET FORWARD

Lesther Artica Rocha, a freshman from Freeman Public, sends the ball across the field in soccer action against Rapid City Christian at Freeman Academy Saturday afternoon, Sept. 21. Rocha has been a production leader for the Bobcats, who are 6-2-3 and seeded fourth in the Class A standings with three regular season games left. The playoffs start Tuesday, Oct. 8.

This photo is included in this week’s Courier, along with the following report:

There has been a little bit of everything for the Freeman Academy soccer team this season:

An opening match tie against Groton Area on Aug. 18, before the Bobcats had their full roster in place;

A 5-1 victory against West Central on Aug. 29 despite not playing great;

A 4-1 win over Dakota Valley the following day in which FA outplayed the Panthers the entire match, only to get sloppy in the final 15 minutes, which prevented the shutout. “First time playing back-to-back,” head coach Nathan Epp said, “and it showed.”

There was the first loss of the season 3-1 at the hands of James Valley on Sept. 6 in which the Bobcats did not play well, a nice bounce-back 2-1 win over a solid Belle Fourche team the next day, and a Sept. 9 game against West Central in which FA gave up a game-tying goal with 10 seconds to play.

There was the Sept. 13-14 road trip out west in which they scored a big 4-1 win over Hot Springs to help their cause in the Class A team standings, only to tie a sub-.500 Custer team that they should have beat.

Said Epp: “We were not ready to play.”

And then there was a fun match last Saturday at home against Rapid City Christian, a 4-2-1 team that the Bobcats slipped past by a score of 3-2 — a well-played game by both teams.

So where does all of that leave a Freeman Academy team that includes players from Freeman Public, Marion and Parker?

Well, in pretty good shape.

The Bobcats entered the week sporting a 6-2-3 record and were No. 4 in the 11-team Class A standings and just a single seed point behind No. 3 Rapid City Christian — the team they defeated on Saturday.

“We’ve been pretty inconsistent, but we have played well,” said Epp, who took over as head coach following three seasons with Scott Dent at the helm. “We have some really skilled players throughout the width of the field and so we like to use a lot of combination play on the outside. That matches us up really well against a lot of other teams, because a lot of those teams focus on the central third; we tend to attack from the outside.”

Among those skilled players is Lesther Artica Rocha, a freshman at Freeman Public who accounts for the majority of the goals scored this season. Justin Escobar, a sophomore midfielder from Marion, has gotten a lot of looks and been in on both the scoring and the assisting side of the ball, and Emma Tuschen, a versatile sophomore from Parker who Epp says understands the game very well.

And Epp says Domani Butler, a sophomore defender from Marion, is an anchor on the defense. “He’s one of our best communicators on the team,” says the coach, who notes how important that is for a young starting defense that, against Rapid City Christian on Saturday, included a sophomore, two freshmen and an eighth grader.

“He does a really good job of talking out there,” Epp says of Butler.

And there are others, both who are contributing already this season and will in the years to come. Freeman Academy full JV and varsity roster has 27 players, of which just three are upperclassmen.

“Some of our inconsistency comes with youth, some of that comes from having a new coach, some some of it comes from not having a lot of upperclassmen — that all factors in,” said Epp, who is being assisted by Paul Ortman. “But the biggest thing we’ve been struggling with is fatigue.”

That, and nagging injuries that have piled up, limiting the team’s depth on the bench.

All of it comes from what has been a rapid-fire schedule. During the middle third of September the Bobcats played eight games in 16 days, including back-to-back matches on Sept. 6-7 and Sept. 13-14.

“The other factor is that we haven’t been able to practice much,” Epp said. “We have not played our style of soccer the last couple of games, and that’s mainly because of fatigue.”

Mental toughness is something the coaches and players will continue to focus on, and a slight reprieve from gametime intensity certainly won’t hurt. The Bobcats are enjoying a full week off following Saturday’s game against Rapid City Christian and then, after FA’s game against Groton Saturday, Sept. 28, won’t play again until the following Thursday.

The regular season finishes with a rematch at James Valley Christian Saturday, Oct. 5.

With the Bobcats sitting at No. 4, they will assuredly quality for the eight-team playoffs and likely host at least the first-round game scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 8. The second round will take place Saturday, Oct. 12 with the state championship in Yankton on Oct. 19.

However it all shakes out, it will add up to what has been a fun and valuable season for a young and diverse team with a lot of potential.

“This is going to be a really good group — you can just tell what they will become,” said Epp. “It’s been fun.”