Cape Coral senior Lucas Cuhna scored the game-winning goal Friday to lead the Seahawks to their second district championship in a row. FILE/MICHAEL PISTELLA

In a tightly contested battle for the district crown, the Cape Coral boys soccer team successfully defended their title by defeating Island Coast 1-0 Friday night.

The now back-to-back 5A District 11 champ Seahawks (10-5-4) took down the No. 1 seeded Gators (10-4-2) on home turf, the lone goal coming from senior Lucas Cuhna in the 57th minute.

“It feels good,” said Cape head coach Dan Gross on repeating as tops in the district. “Our mission this year was to win this game and advance to the state tournament. This season has obviously been difficult with COVID-19 and having players out, but every team is dealing with that.

“We’ve met our first goal so far and now it’s on to regionals, and that’s been our goal since the beginning of the year, and it feels good.”

For Island Coast, the defeat put an end to their record eight-game win streak and dashed their hopes of raising their first-ever district title in their first-ever district final match. While emotions were certainly high in the aftermath, head coach Craig Bullock can be nothing but proud of the progress his squad has made in just his second season as head coach.

“It was a back-and-forth game. I thought after about 20 minutes it was going to be a 1-0 game, it was just whoever gets the one,” Bullock said. “Cape is an incredible team, and we have a lot of respect for them, but we’re hurting. You go from where we come from to where we are — it’s hard, it’s hard to accept. But we will. And we’ll fight back, and we know we get to continue to play.”

The teams battled for possession all night long. The Gators had some great looks early on and slowly Cape began to turn the tide. The Seahawks came out of a scoreless half with a bit more juice and the writing on the wall started to appear.

“I think it was an effort thing,” Gross said. “We have a deep roster and were able to rotate players in and out, and they were unable to rotate as many so you could see the fatigue.

“Island Coast should be proud of their season and where they’ve come from. They’re well coached. I know both teams are tired — we both had battles on Wednesday — so you knew it was going to come down to who got that bounce and luckily we did.”

Gross said the game plan was to try to bring the ball deep to a corner and look for openings from there instead of attacking the middle, and it paid dividends.

The game-winning score came via that method when Junior Joao Soares (who scored twice in Cape’s 3-1 extra-time win against South Fort Myers in the semifinal) made a rush up the right side of the field and deep to a corner. He kept his composure when a crossing attempt was not to be had and with some nifty ball control, finally attempted a centering pass. Soares’s pass was denied by a Gator defender who attempted to clear the danger, but Johnny-on-the-spot was Seahawk senior Kase Frohman. He corralled the ball and swiftly passed to an open Cuhna, who was straight-up with the keeper from roughly 20 yards out.

Kuhna settled the pass with his left boot, quickly set, and swung with the same. His shot rolled just passed the outstretched Dawid Dygdon and inside the post.

The Gators scraped for a chance at the equalizer down the stretch but could not find it.

Although they were unable to capture a district championship, Island Coast’s campaign this season has truly been remarkable. The team amassed more wins this season than in the previous five years combined (9-71-8), earned their first No. 1 seed in a district tournament and made their first appearance in a district final in school history.

“I don’t think there’s any way to put it lightly – this season has been historic for us,” said an emotional Bullock. “We got these guys to believe in us, and we believe in them. You’ve got to have that or you can’t do anything. It’s amazing what these guys can accomplish, and they believe in themselves now more than I thought they ever would, and it’s a beautiful thing.”

Both the Seahawks and Gators will move on to the regional bracket with a chance to capture a state title.

It’s going to be a battle,” Gross said. “It’s going to come down to who is healthy, and who gets those bounces. We have nothing but good teams left.”

Bullock said he’s happy to get to continue this season.

“We’ll get back to work,” he said. “We get to spend more time together. Last year we were home at this time but now we have more soccer just to see what we can do. We’re going to go out and fight, and you never know what’s going to happen.”

Regional quarterfinal games begin Feb. 17.

–Connect with this reporter on Twitter: @haddad_cj