MICHAEL PISTELLA / mpistella@breezenewspapers.com Cape Coral senior Lucas Cunha (8) tries to get past the Lely defense during the Seahawks’ regional quarterfinal Wednesday night. To view more photos from the match, see the Cape Coral Breeze Facebook page.

The Cape Coral boys soccer team’s season came to an end Wednesday night as the Seahawks dropped their 5A Region 3 quarterfinal match to Lely 2-0.  

The Seahawks didn’t find their legs until about 20 minutes into the match and the Trojans capitalized on it. A pair of goals from senior Kener Herrera was the difference, the first coming in the 8th minute and again in minute 49. 

“Lely is a well coached team. They’ve been a strong team for the past five years, you’ve got to give credit to them,” said Cape head coach Dan Gross. “Both teams had chances and they put theirs away and we didn’t. It’s as simple as that.” 

Lely opened the scoring when free kick from midfield to the box was headed by a Cape defender to Trojan Armando Anaya, who played it off his chest, to his foot and back to his head for Herrera.   

Herrera showed excellent patience waiting for his opening from a few yards out and buried it past Cape keeper Preston Allen.  

“They came out ready to play from the beginning and it seemed it took some time for us to get going,” Gross said.  

While the pressure from Lely was immanent early on, Cape battled back and created opportunities of their own.  

Seahawk senior Lucas Cuhna, junior Joao Soares and junior Joel Garcia worked for their chances but came up empty despite their best efforts. Senior Kase Frohman was stalwart the entire match and squashed many Trojan opportunities. Allen in net made countless saves that easily could have resulted in a lopsided score.  

Herrera’s goal early in the second half gave Lely a cushion and a lead the Trojans would not relinquish.  

“That’s really the difference in the match – is just finishing,” Gross said. “We had some great chances and we didn’t put them away and they did.” 

The Seahawks end the year without a state tournament victory but do walk away district champions. 

Lely will take on Golden Gate, which defeated Island Coast, this Saturday in a regional semifinal match at 7 p.m. 

— Connect with this reporter on Twitter: @haddad_cj