[email\u00a0protected]<\/a><\/p>\nPLANO \u2013 After waiting in the locker room for more than one hour because of a lightning delay and then playing 12 additional minutes following the resumption of play, first-year Plano East head boys soccer coach Justin Bailey stood in the middle of the postgame team huddle and said the words the Panthers had waited to hear for at least eight years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to the playoffs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Bailey, who had been drenched with a Powerade ice bath moments earlier, exited the huddle while his players jumped up and down to celebrate a 2-1 playoff-clinching win over Plano at Clark Stadium on Friday.<\/p>\n
The celebration was particularly fitting for the team\u2019s seniors, who had been fueled by previous heartbreak.<\/p>\n
Last season, Plano East lost 4-3 to McKinney in the penultimate game of the regular season \u2014 a setback that eliminated the Panthers from playoff contention. Two years ago, Plano East won just one of its final five games, including a 4-3 loss to Marcus in the regular-season finale, and again missed out on the postseason.<\/p>\n
When Bailey was hired as Plano East\u2019s head coach, he came in with a plan. He wanted to build a team culture that emphasized hard work. What made Bailey\u2019s hiring appealing was his familiarity with the players. He was an assistant coach for Plano East two years ago before serving in the same role with the Lady Panthers\u2019 girls team. Last year, he helped lead Plano East\u2019s girls to the postseason for the first time in 15 years. Last week, he helped guide the boys team to its first playoff berth in nearly a decade.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really feels like a curse broken and something that we can build into the future,\u201d he said. \u201cBut again, this group fights hard and deserves it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tensest moment of Friday\u2019s match came immediately after the lightning delay. Play had been stopped with 12:12 remaining in the second half and the score tied 1-1.<\/p>\n
When play resumed, Plano East needed just nine seconds to score. A throw-in by senior Jordy Rocha was headed back into the field of play by a Panther forward. Senior midfielder Myles Dennis ran aggressively toward the ball in the middle of the field and placed a header into the back of the net for a 2-1 Panthers lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s probably our most influential player,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cHe dominates everything in the central midfield, creates plays, wins tackles and he scores goals like he did tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plano East had to rally to win the game.<\/p>\n
Plano, which needed a victory to keep its playoff chances alive, took a 1-0 lead with 24:55 remaining in the first half after Cade Saylor scored on a breakaway.<\/p>\n
The Panthers tied the score at 1-1 on a goal by Brandon Cazeault from the left side with just under 10 minutes remaining in the opening half.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely tough to recover after giving up a breakaway and getting them mentally back in the game,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cBut our guys truly believed that they were the better team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Plano East boys soccer team poses for pictures after defeating Plano 2-1 at John Clark Stadium on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":["post-194317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}