The "draws" were drawn up very nicely for Warsaw's two soccer programs.

When the soccer sectional pairings were announced last week, both Tiger girls coach Brent Wildman and boys coach Corey Rose liked what they saw in their prospects of reaching the championship matches of the Columbia City Sectional.

The Tiger girls will open up sectional play Oct. 14 against Jay County at 7 p.m. A win against a relatively unknown Jay County program, and the Tigers get a rematch possibly with Columbia City. The Tigers have already beaten the Eagles once this season, but it was the Eagles who knocked Warsaw out of the sectional last year in the infamous shootout/darkness match. If the championship is in the cards for the Tigers, it will probably mean a date with state-ranked Homestead.

"We played Columbia City this year, and we got our payback," Wildman said. "It was a very good game, and the girls want to play them again. They are even talking to me about it.

"We have made some revisions to our lineup and our game plan," he said. "So, the last two regular season games, and the first two sectional games could be good in terms of practice and training before we would get into the sectional championship."

Warsaw's season started out very strong, beginning 9-0-1. It hasn't been as smooth since that point for the Tigers, including a tough 1-0 loss to Northridge that cost Warsaw the Northern Lakes Conference title.

Wildman is looking to put all that behind and focus on the task at hand.

"All of those things that have happened to us this year are good learning things for our team," he said. "They still can't believe what happened to them against Northridge. The other team (Northridge) came into win, and we came into defend. That is the way the game went.

"We have shown our stuff against Goshen (a win)," he said. "We played well against them. We were a team that played well together and had fun. They played to the level of their ability, and that is where I want them to be heading into the sectional. It is always good to hit a little bit of a slump and be able to come back strong. If we hadn't lost any games, then we would go in defending a season. At this point, it is like starting your season over again."

A matchup with Homestead, a traditionally tough soccer program, would show Warsaw exactly how far the program has come in three years.

"Homestead is a super strong program," Wildman said. "They are extremely experienced, and when it comes to soccer, one of the keys is to be able to instinctly react. We are looking forward to playing them.

"We played them during the first period of the jamboree," he said. "Our girls had a taste of playing them. They were more prepared to play at that time than we were. I know our girls remember that, and our girls will be ready to play them."

The boys sectional, which begins Oct. 13, puts Warsaw against Peru, a team traditionally without a strong program, in the bye game on Oct. 15.

"We finally got the draw we have been looking for the last four years," Rose said. "You can't get a better draw than that. I don't know what Peru is like this year, but in the past, they haven't been as strong."

One win over Peru, and Warsaw is in the championship game.

"We need to have a decent test to get us ready for Saturday night if that is the case," Rose said. "But we can't look past Peru. We are not playing tremendous ball right now, so we still have to concentrate on one game at a time. The team that has had that draw in the past has won the sectional."

Warsaw started out the season by not winning a ball game until the sixth game of the year against some pretty good competition. After that first win came against NorthWood, four more consecutive wins came the Tigers' way. But two more losses followed after that, and that is the kind of season Warsaw has been having.

"We're starting to come back up again. We are starting to play better ball, but not quite to the level when we strung those five games together," Rose said. "We are starting to get hungry again and focused." [[In-content Ad]]