Cypress Bay boys soccer overcomes early deficit to secure sixth state title overall

After winning five state championships in a seven-year span between 2011 and 2017, a five-year wait for a sixth probably seemed like forever for the Cypress Bay boys soccer team.

But the wait ended late Saturday afternoon when the Lightning, on the strength of a pair of goals from two seniors, Jace Meuser and Massimo Natoli, nailed down the championship with a convincing 4-1 victory over Tampa Plant in the Class 7A state championship game at Spec Martin Stadium.

Ranked No. 7 in the nation by Max Preps entering the postseason, the Lightning finished their 2021-22 campaign with a 22-1 record and will likely move into the top five nationally as two teams in front of them lost. Plant, which has never won a state title and had to settle for a second straight state runner-up trophy, finished 22-4-1.

“So my goal when I arrived here, my dream was to be the leading public school with state championships and now we are there,” said Cypress Bay coach Colin Ilgner who took over in 2015 and won state titles that year and in 2017. “We have a great deal of pride in this program and are so thrilled to have another state championship banner to put up at the school.”

Ilgner was almost right when it came to the public school state title record.

With its sixth, Cypress Bay officially moved into a tie with Miami Killian for most state titles by a public school in Florida. Four other private schools have more with Clearwater Calvary Christian leading the way with nine.

Perhaps the biggest storyline of the day other than winning the title was that the Lightning actually gave up a goal and fell behind in the game.

When Plant’s Adam McGlynn snuck one past Lightning goalkeeper Daniel Guerrero at the 25:28 mark of the first half, it marked only the second time in the last 15 games that Cypress Bay had given up a goal, dating back to a Dec. 13 regular season game.

It also marked only the second time all season that they trailed in a game - their lone loss of the season, 6-2, to Plantation American Heritage on Nov. 29 being the lone exception.

But the deficit lasted for all of 27 seconds until Cypress Bay got the ball back downfield and Meuser beat the Panther defense around the right side. He created a one-on-one situation with Plant keeper Mikey Keane and knocked one into the top left corner of the net.

“We worked all season to get to this point so even when we fell behind early, which is the first time I can remember in forever we’ve been behind in a game, we didn’t blink,” Meuser said. “We came right back on them and got it tied real quick. I got a ball down, low, touched it past the defender and just like that, I was all by myself down low on the right side and just left sided it past the keeper.”

Just when it looked like the team’s would go into halftime tied, Cypress Bay took a lead it would never lose when Elan Romo sent a shot from the left side towards Keane that he stopped but lost the handle on the ball. Meuser was right in front of the net and easily knocked the rebound in for a 2-1 lead 1:52 before the half.

As they have all season, the Lightning defense took over and protected the lead with its lockdown style before Natoli got the insurance goal they were looking for with 23:56 left to make it 3-1. He then closed out his high school career in style with a second goal with 9:21 left as the Lightning bench and their fans in the stands began an early celebration.

“I just knew I had to do it for my team today,” Natoli said. “These guys are my brothers, I see them everyday and appreciate being given the opportunity to play alongside of them. We know this program had all of these state titles but the last one was five years ago so none of us were around back then. We wanted to get one for us to bring home and that’s exactly what we did.”