Marion goes from No. 5 substate seed to boys’ state soccer qualifier

MARION — On paper, Marion being seeded fifth in a six-team Class 2A boys’ soccer substate made some sense.

“We took some big Ls early on in the year,” senior Levi Murphy said.

In reality, the Indians knew they were state tournament contenders.

Thanks to three straight road wins against higher-seeded teams, Marion (12-6) is set to make its third boys’ state soccer appearance Tuesday at Cownie Soccer Complex in Des Moines. Kickoff against No. 1-ranked Cedar Rapids Xavier (12-5) is 2:30 p.m.

“It was a very down season for us, but we kept our heads up. We knew our time was coming,” Murphy said. “It was just so fun, being on the road with the guys, getting all the dubs on other teams’ home fields, just showing the world what we can do.”

A 3-6 start, but signs of potential

This late-season run is the latest sign Marion could be here to stay in the Eastern Iowa boys’ soccer hierarchy.

After reaching state in 2017 and 2018, Marion was undefeated when it took a heartbreaking loss in penalties to Dubuque Wahlert in the 2019 substate finals. Even worse, a 2020 team with state championship potential missed out on all-state forward Jaffer Murphy’s senior season when the pandemic struck.

This year, an inexperienced Indians team showed some life even amid a tough early April stretch.

There were blowout losses to the likes of Marshalltown, West Des Moines Dowling and Xavier, yes, but also victories over highly-ranked Class 1A teams Solon and Dyersville Beckman. More importantly, injuries and COVID quarantines prevented Marion from having its full squad.

“At the beginning of the season, I knew the potential,” Marion Coach Kory Boebel said. “I just continually told them, ‘hey guys, you stick with this, you put in the work, our limit is endless.’”

Marion was outscored 10-2 by Vinton-Shellsburg and Benton Community to drop to 3-6, but things started to turn around with a 3-2 win April 30 against Independence.

Marion hasn’t lost since.

“We definitely knew we were a good team,” Marion senior midfielder Liam Ngo said. “We just kept losing our players to injuries or COVID. We kind of knew our record in the season didn’t reflect our actual skill because we didn’t have all our best players.”

Levi Murphy, the team’s leading scorer this year with 19 goals, was one of those players who missed time in quarantine.

That’s when Ngo, who played sparingly as a sophomore, knew something had to change.

“I kind of slowly realized we just all needed to step up and someone needed to lead,” Ngo said. “I slowly fell into that place.”

Ngo wears the captain’s armband and is second on the team with 16 goals. This, a year after he stopped playing club soccer, meaning he missed out on the sport entirely.

“I actually forgot how much I loved it,” Ngo said.

“I look back at pictures of him when he was just a sophomore,” Boebel said of Ngo. “He was just this little kid. When he showed up this year, he was just matured mentally and physically. He’s played a huge role as a leader on this team. That’s why he’s our captain.”

Marion’s postseason run almost ended before it really started

Eighth-ranked and top-seeded Nevada awaited in the substate semifinals, but Marion first had to win at South Tama.

Marion beat the Trojans, 4-1, in the penultimate regular-season game but trailed 1-0 with six minutes left in the substate opener. Ngo, Murphy and the other four seniors, including Murphy’s brother Samuel, were suddenly facing the end of their high school careers.

“That definitely went through my head,” Ngo said. “Ten minutes left in the game, I was like, ‘wow, we really blew this.’

“But we came back.”

It started with a Murphy free kick goal to tie the score. Then, Murphy found Ngo for the go-ahead goal to make sure overtime wasn’t necessary.

“That was definitely a time where our grit was tested,” Murphy said. “We’re a battle-tested team.”

Marion took a 2-0 halftime lead at Nevada and held on to win 3-2, becoming the only team in the state to knock off a top-seeded opponent in the substate semifinals. Then it blasted Grinnell, 5-1, in last Wednesday’s substate final and posed with a state-qualifying banner that may have seemed out of reach a few months ago.

“We really had nothing to lose coming in as the 5-seed,” Boebel said. “We just played our hearts out and it paid off.”

Now, Xavier awaits. The Saints were Class 2A runners-up in 2019 and have been eyeing a state championship trophy ever since.

The regular-season meeting was a 4-0 Xavier win on April 17. That might as well have been a different season — oh, by the way, Marion got yet another player back last week when sophomore Jackson Kirsch returned from a knee injury and scored against Grinnell.

The Saints are favored, but by now, Marion is used to that.

“I know them pretty well and how they play,” Ngo said. “We didn’t have all our teammates for that game so I’m excited to play them again, just see how we do. I think it’s gonna be a great game.”

Comments: nathan.ford@thegazette.com