The regular-season finale of the Bridger Valley Clasico took place Friday afternoon at Eagles Stadium in Lyman, and as is usually the case when the Mountain View and Lyman boys’ soccer teams square off for bragging rights, the match lived up to expectations.

When the dust finally settled, the Buffalos (7-1, 5-1 in 3A West) earned the season sweep over their Bridger Valley rivals with a hard-fought 3-1 win, though the match was closer than the score might indicate. That said, both teams played a good, clean game, a fact not lost on the coaches afterward.

“I was actually really pleased with just the feeling of the game,” said MV head coach Cathy Piekkola. “There’s always the rivalry, but I felt that there was a lot of sportsmanship on both sides, and I really appreciated that. I felt like it was a well-managed game — the players played well. It was physical, but with sportsmanship. You left the field happy that we got a win, but happier that we’re all friends at the end — that’s always important with a rivalry game. I think that everyone’s shaking hands and everybody’s still up after the game.”

Mountain View got things started early, scoring the first goal of the match at the 34:29 mark of the first half. A corner kick by Nash Piekkola was deflected back out into the box by Lyman keeper Nate Brady; Mountain View’s Casey Walker was there for the rebound and the putback to make it 1-0.

“We scored within the first 10 minutes, which is something that we’ve been striving for the last couple of years,” coach Piekkola said. “It came in off of a corner; I honestly couldn’t see who got the initial take but it came off of their keeper, and Casey Walker put it back in the net. Lyman’s field is quite narrow, so we talked about not sending high chips in — just more line drives off the corners — I thought that we might be a little bit more effective that way.”

Lyman brought the match back to even at the 13:21 mark, when Deavon Schear scored on a nice shot from just outside the box that floated over the outstretched hands of Buffs keeper Colter Tims for the score. The teams went into the break knotted at 1-1.

“Deavon Schear just found himself a window and took probably a 30-yard shot off the corner and just floated it in,” Piekkola said. “It’s one of those that — as a defensive coach, you’re just like ‘Oh no!’ And the keeper — I mean poor Colter [Tims] —  I know he’s just like, ‘Ah, man.’  But it was a nice shot.”

Piekkola said with the score tied, nerves began to set in, because her team was not playing with the same sort of intensity she was used to seeing, especially in rivalry games.

“I felt like it kind of deflated us —  we’ve been really successful this year staying on top of most of the games, and so we haven’t had to fight back a lot,” she said. “I was wondering where our fight was, because as a rule throughout Mountain View boys soccer, we’ve had to fight for everything.”

A quick pep talk at halftime seemed to get the Mountain View reenergized, and the Buffalos took the field for the second half with a renewed focus.

“We talked about the fact that this is our seniors’ last time to play against Lyman,” Piekkola said. “Let’s go out there and let’s do our thing — keep our heads high, and play our game, control the tempo.”

Walker scored his second goal of the match at the 26:14 mark of the second half on a through ball that found him in stride in the attacking third. The senior made a nice move to get around Brady in net, and put the ball away to make it 2-1 in favor of the Buffs.

“I moved Casey Walker up to the nine in the second half, which typically he doesn’t play,” coach Piekkola said. “He’s usually in the midfield. I moved Nash [Piekkola] back to the eight, just to give us a little bit more control in the midfield, and we took a quick free kick — probably about 40 yards out — and Nash just put a nice ball through to Casey, and he powered off the the defense and slid one into the to the back corner for our second goal.”

The Buffs scored an insurance goal with just over seven minutes to play in the contest, when Andrew Harmon found the back of the net for his first goal of the season, off a corner kick by Nash Piekkola. Mountain View’s defense was able to hold off the Eagles’ attack for the remainder of regulation, and returned home with the 3-1 win, as well as the season sweep.

“It was just a great team effort,” coach Piekkola said. “We wanted to keep the ball in our attacking half in that last 10 minutes, so we brought in Mason Hope and Jaxson Hadley to give us some fresh legs up there. They didn’t see a lot of minutes, but the minutes they saw really helped keep some life out there as the rest of the guys began to get tired. Kayd Allen and Landon Solaas keep the center of that back line intact and strong, while Brockton Walker and Brendon Walker do a really good job on the flanks, just pushing into the attack and cutting off their attacking runs from the outside. It was just a good, solid team effort. Glad we came away with another win.”

The Buffalos close out the regular season at home this week, with matches against Powell Friday and top-ranked Cody Saturday. Mountain View beat both teams to open the season in April, but Piekkola knows her team will be in for a battle.

“We’re just going to keep on working on our possession — really focused on getting the ball off of our foot quicker, making our decisions just a little bit faster,” Piekkola said. “Powell and Cody are both very quick and fast teams, so we need to make sure that we can match that speed. We’ll continue working on our attacking runs and see if we can’t put a few more points on the board. We haven’t had high scoring games by any means, so we’ll just keep working on that. It’s not that we haven’t had opportunities — we’ve had lots of chances. We’re just not hitting the net as much as I would like. Enough to win games, so that’s really what matters.”