UPPER LAKE — It's hard to end your year with a loss and still smile about it, but Upper Lake High School boys soccer head coach Thomas Santana said the Cougars had plenty to celebrate this season despite a 5-1 loss to South Fork in the opening round of the North Coast Section Division 2 playoffs Wednesday night in Upper Lake.

Upper Lake's Blaine Rhodes (10) prepares to take a shot on goal. (Bob Minenna/Record-Bee)

The Cougars, the No. 8 seed in the 16-team Division 2 field, finish at 5-7-4 overall after posting a winning record (4-2-3) in the North Central League III standings where they finished second to Point Arena.

A program known for its losing ways going back many years finally made some noise after Santana, who started out the fall sports season as an assistant football coach for the Cougars, agreed to take over for veteran coach Kyle Moore, who stepped down for personal reasons in late August.

Santana didn't inherit a veteran team by any means. Upper Lake's roster had only two seniors, Kai Young and Blaine Rhodes, and most of the younger players had little or no soccer experience, a situation that wasn't helped by losing the entire 2020 season to the COVID-19 pandemic.

That won't be the case in 2022.

"Moving on to next year, I have pretty much my whole team coming back," Santana said. "We have some great stuff to look forward to."

Sammy Avalos' header for a goal makes its way into the net in the first half for Upper Lake.

Santana also coaches the Upper Lake Middle School soccer team in the spring, so he'll have a pretty good idea about the available talent coming through the Cougars' feeder system in just a few months.

"We did something this year that we haven't done before," Santana said of not only reaching the postseason, but securing a first-round home game. "It's good to see us in the playoffs."

South Fork scored the game's first goal, a shot by Ryder York, with 18 minutes left in the first half. Six minutes later Upper Lake's Sammy Avalos tied it at 1-1 by heading the ball into the net.

While Avalos' goal generated the momentum the Cougars desperately needed, especially after a 7-0 home loss to Point Arena last week in their regular-season finale, they couldn't build on it. Upper Lake had a chance to take the lead not long after Avalos scored, but South Fork keeper Logan Hobbs recorded a tough save, one of several key stops by the senior in the first half when the Cougars spent quite a bit of time on the Cubs' side of the field.

South Fork keeper Logan Hobbs saves a shot on goal.

The game's key sequence occurred in the final 135 seconds of the first half, beginning with South Fork's Hector Torres wiggling his way free from Upper Lake's defense long enough to blast a shot past keeper Darian Loans Arrow for a 2-1 Cubs lead. Less than a minute later Torres scored again as a South Fork shot ricocheted off Loans Arrow and ended up near Torres. With Loans Arrow's momentum taking him away from the goal, Torres flicked the ball into the net to make it 3-1.

"We made a couple of mistakes and had to play catch-up the rest of the game," Santana said.

Upper Lake's Darian Loans Arrow looks for an open teammate to pass the ball to during second-half action against South Fork.

Upper Lake still had plenty of time to get back into the game as the second half got under way, but the Cubs' York scored an unassisted goal just seven minutes in for his second score of the game.

Hobbs made a big-time save a couple of minutes later to deny the Cougars a second goal.

South Fork added to its lead on a Omar Villareal shot with 21:09 remaining.

Upper Lake had one last chance to score after South Fork was called for a hand ball in the box, but Rhodes missed wide right on a penalty kick with less than a minute remaining.

"It was his last game, so I wanted him to take the shot," Santana said. "I really wanted to see him make it."

A pair of South Fork players hit the turf along with an Upper Lake player during some rough-and-tumble second-half action.

The tone of the contest was at times physical. The Cubs received two yellow cards and two red cards. The second red card went to a South Fork fan after the game had ended.

South Fork (6-6) advances to the quarterfinals and will play at No. 1 seed Sonoma Academy (12-1-2) Saturday at 7 p.m. in Santa Rosa.