With the winter sports season about to get underway, the Coal City community took time to recognize the achievement of one of its fall teams on Wednesday.

That is when a recognition night was held for the boys soccer team, a team coming off a season that ended with a 6-1 win in the third-place game of the IHSA Class 1A state tournament on Nov. 7, and was by basically every measure the best season in program history.

“It’s kind of weird to come down from all the excitement and everything, so tonight is just about celebrating these guys and the achievements that they had,” head coach Steve McCleary said. “We don’t want to just forget about it when it’s over, so to be able to have the community come in and be able to show off all the hardware these guys earned and all the good that they did, I think it’s just awesome for them to get as much recognition as they possibly can.”

This season marked the Coalers’ first appearance at state. They also won their first regional and sectional titles this season and set a number of program records, including most wins (24), most shutouts (17), most goals scored (108) and fewest goals allowed (14).

Last week’s win was also the first time the team’s 12 seniors had to have one of their high school sports come to an end.

This group helped spearhead a resurgent couple of seasons, going from a combined 8-27-2 record in 2022 and 2023 to a combined 41-11-1 record over the last two seasons.

As these seniors now move on to basketball, wrestling or to preparations for their spring sports, midfielder Dane Noffsinger said it has been nice to take a bit of a victory lap.

“It’s been really fun with everyone congratulating us,” he said. “We feel accomplished. Obviously it [stinks] we couldn’t get first or second, but third is the third-best and we’ll take it. I feel like it’s mutual that everyone wishes soccer kept going, but it was a great season.

“It was a lot of fun.”

Coal City has had programs achieve success at state-level competition, chiefly the wrestling program that has made team trips to state eight times since the 2014-15 season and won two state titles in the last three years.

Senior Luke Munsterman was part of the wrestling team that won state last season, and was a key piece at midfield on the soccer team’s state run.

He said it was nice to get a new program a spot in the trophy case, and some of the high-level competition he has faced in wrestling helped him a bit come soccer season.

“I never would’ve thought we would win something at soccer, so to get a medal and trophy is amazing,” Munsterman said. “In wrestling we just have big matches, so I just prepared for a soccer game like I did a wrestling match.”

Senior Julian Micetich also has state experience from track and field. He has made consecutive trips to state and last season finished seventh in the finals of the 110-meter hurdles.

While he said those appearances at state flew under the radar a bit, it was great to have everyone on board and cheering on the soccer team throughout and now after their postseason run.

“When I went to state for track, I got back and some people were like ‘Where were you?’ ” he said. “I said I was down at state and they were like ‘Oh, I had no idea.’

“This was totally different. The whole school knew, and you walk through the hallways and feel a little taller because everyone is looking at you. It’s wonderful.”

While many on the team are finished with their high school soccer careers, a solid core of returning players are enjoying the success while also trying to make sure the run to state was the start of something big for the program, not the end.

Junior goalkeeper Carter Nicholson is part of that returning class.

“It definitely felt pretty good being a part of that, and I’m hoping we can do pretty much the same next year,” he said. “I’m glad the seniors got to end with a good note on the season.”