Auburn boys soccer snaps postseason drought, but falls to Emerald Ridge in second round
Published 1:27 pm Wednesday, May 13, 2026
It’s safe to say it has been a while since Auburn High School’s boys soccer has won a playoff game. Records date back to 2012, and the Trojans hadn’t won a game in the district tournament in the previous 14 years. Auburn made the state tournament in 2006, so one can assume a district tournament game had to be won that year, but there is a five year void between these data sets.
Regardless, it had been too long — and led by coach Skyler Roehr, the Trojans snapped that dry spell this year with a win over Graham-Kapowsin on May 9, then took on Emerald Ridge in the second round on May 12.
“It’s been definitely a roller coaster of a year, a lot of ups and a lot of downs. Some good solid second half performances. It is unlucky we gave up some goals in some bad times. We dug ourselves out once, probably asking a lot to do it back to back,” Roehr said.
That Graham-Kapowsin game took a lot of effort from Auburn. They trailed 2-0 until the final quarter of an hour before they rallied late and scored the winning goal on the last kick of the game.
But on Tuesday night, the wind in the sails of Auburn’s ship was gone as they fell 3-1 to Emerald Ridge. Emerald Ridge played a pretty complete game, but Roehr didn’t want the end of the season to tarnish what this team had accomplished.
“I don’t know if anyone expected us to be here,” Roehr said. “All of a sudden here we are, making payoffs in 4A, which nobody has expected. Getting a playoff win, which no one expects. Hopefully moving forward, we keep progressing like we have been.”
Emerald Ridge scored the first goal of the game in the 16th minute with Trenton Veney using his technical skills and speed to beat Auburn’s Javier Armas. The Auburn defense held strong the rest of the half, and Auburn went into halftime down just the one goal. Against a team the caliber of Emerald Ridge, Roehr had a simple message for his team.
“We had a lot to fight for on this field, we earned a lot here. I was hoping we could inspire ourselves and earn a little bit more. We had a couple of opportunities, but it just didn’t quite fall our way,” Roehr said.
In the second half, Auburn created a couple of positive chances and were putting more pressure on the Emerald Ridge defenders. Against the run of play, Emerald Ridge scored their second goal by Santiago Jimenez.
With 17 minutes to go, a bolt of lightning struck, which meant both teams had to head to the locker room for 30 minutes. Once the restart began, Emerald Ridge scored their third goal just two minutes into the restart and put the game out of reach.
Auburn did however manage to claw one goal back inside of the final 10 minutes of play on a corner kick, just like they had done all season.
It’s now been 20 years since Auburn last made the state tournament. But Roehr seems the be the right man for the job. In Roehr’s tenure, this team won the most games ever, and his senior class of just five players laid the foundation for the future. “I am super thankful for this senior class. It is a great group of leaders. We are going to miss them a lot. That is in bold, underlined and italicized, we are going to miss those guys a ton,” Roehr said.
