The Long County Blue Tide Rocket League team’s Spring 2023 season came to an end on Wednesday, April 12. The Wave Racers took on seventh-ranked Lambert in the second round and it came down to the last 20 seconds of the final game in the seven-game series before the Tide fell.

The Racers won their first playoff game in team history Monday with a big win over the Jeff Davis Yellow Jackets and took on a much tougher challenge in the Round of 32. They did not let this intimidate them, however, as they took the first game of the set 4-2.

Isaac Garcia scored the Racers’ first goal after they went down 1-0 in the first minute of the game. Kaleb Driver scored at the 2:16 mark to give the Racers the lead.

Driver pushed the lead out to 3-1 with another goal just 13 seconds later before the Longhorns cut the deficit to one. Driver finished off the hat trick with a goal in the final 20 seconds.

The Longhorns won the next three games and take a 3-1 set lead, winning Game 2 2-0 and Game 3 4-3, despite Driver giving the team a 2-0 lead, Lambert took Game 4 3-2 four seconds into the sudden death overtime period, a game where Brendan Mosley gave the Racers a 2-0 lead in the first two minutes. 

Driver and Garcia paired up for two goals in Game 5 and the Racers shut out the Longhorns again in Game 6 as Driver scored his seventh goal of the series and Garcia notched a flawless hat trick for the 4-0 win.

Going into the decisive Game 7, the Longhorns jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first 2:17 of the contest. Another Garcia flawless hat trick and a Mosley goal tied the game with just 36 seconds left before the Longhorns snuck a shot into the Tide’s goal with nine seconds left as the Tide fell 5-4 and lost the series 4-3.

With the heartbreaking loss, the Racers finish the season 6-4 and will look to rebuild as they will lose Mosley and Driver to graduation next school year.