TIFFIN — From the very first game of the season, the 2026 Clear Fork Colts girls soccer team faced adversity.
And it didn’t stop just at Game 1. Throughout the entire season one thing after another brought the Colts to their knees, but the one thing this year’s team will be known for is never giving up.
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So, when they walked off the pitch after falling to Liberty Benton 2-1 in the Division IV regional semifinals on Tuesday, Nov. 3 at Tiffin’s Frost-Kalnow Stadium, sure, there were tears, but there was also appreciation for everything they accomplished this season.
“It is weird, I feel at piece,” Clear Fork coach Brittany Bechtel said. “We went down fighting and I am happy for the season these seniors enjoyed. It is such a special group that I love dearly and have been coaching since they were seven years old. They went down swinging and finished one heck of a year.”
The Colts held a halftime lead thanks to a goal by Maci Roberts off of an assist from Brea Bieri, but Liberty Benton scored two second-half goals to end Clear Fork’s season with a 16-3-2 record.
Clear Fork’s Maci Roberts settles the ball at her feet as the Colts took a tough 2-1 loss to Liberty Benton in the Division IV regional semifinal girls soccer match on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026 at Tiffin’s Frost-Kalnow Stadium.
“They are probably the best possessional team we have played all year,” Bechtel said. “We talked about the things we knew we had to do and went over the adjustments. In the first half, we were up 1-0 and they were the dominant team and then in the second half, I felt like we were putting more pressure on and they scored two. The game is funny that way.”
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The Colts went through it this season. Senior captain Asia Bechtel was lost in the first nine minutes of the season with an ACL injury. Returning leading scorer and senior Mya Perry and senior Layla Daugherty went down with ACL injuries and junior Kendall Baughman was lost before the season even started. They were down four potential starters and still won a district championship, the 10th in program history. They did it with a plethora of young players including five freshmen on the roster.
“The ability to just level up across our field was magical,” Bechtel said. “We lost Asia (Bechtel), Mya (Perry), Layla (Daugherty) and Kendall (Baughman) right out of the gate and I ask myself if we would be the team we are with them. I feel like people leveled up in places they wouldn’t have without those losses. I will always wonder what kind of team we would be if we had all of our puzzle pieces, but I believe the loss of them made players play at a level they never would have. I have never had a season quite like this one.”
And it was a season where Bechtel herself questioned if she had what it took to coach the team moving forward. After losing her daughter in the opening game after waiting 18 years to have the opportunity to coach her senior year weighed heavily on Bechtel to the point she nearly asked assistant coach Chris Laux to take over the rest of the season.
Clear Fork’s Sylvia Secrist played standout defense as the Colts took a tough 2-1 loss to Liberty Benton in the Division IV regional semifinal girls soccer match on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026 at Tiffin’s Frost-Kalnow Stadium.
“I had a moment in the summer where the girls were all adversity struck and I said to them, ‘When adversity strikes, that when you know what you are made of’,” Bechtel said. “That speech came right back to me and that’s when I decided I would give the girls everything I had. What they did this year is something I will take with me until the day I walk out of here.”
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The Colts put up a season no one expected after losing the talent they lost. They put themselves in position to win a Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference championship with a winner-take-all-game against Ontario, one the Colts eventually lost 1-0. But it was the start of something special that led to a trip to the Sweet 16.
“That game stung really bad,” Bechtel said. “I felt it in my bones that gave would project us because we had a feeling that we couldn’t get anywhere else. I told them to keep that feeling right here in your heart and use that when we go through the tournament. That will power is why we are here.”
The Colts say goodbye to seven seniors in Perry, Ava Boccio, Lily Swendal, Asia Bechtel, Ava Roberts, Sylvia Secrist and Daugherty.
This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Adversity-filled season comes to an end for Clear Fork girls soccer
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