A downhearted home finale all but capped an up-and-down season Monday for the Bainbridge High boys varsity soccer squad.

The final buzzer saw the Spartans down 3-1 against the visiting West Seattle Wildcats (4-6-4 overall), and left with a league record of 4-6-4 (5-6-4 overall). The two teams are tied for 11th place in the Metro League standings.

Despite one remaining regular season outing, an away match on Wednesday against Eastside Catholic (6-4-3 in conference), BHS Head Coach Drew Keller said the loss to West Seattle had nearly assured the Spartans would not be moving on to the postseason this year.

“I’m sick about that one,” he said. “We needed something out of this game. This is probably going to close the playoff door for us here, which is tough.”

Keller said the Metro was more than living up to its cut-throat reputation this year.

“It’s always a tight league and this season, the last potential four or five spots are just razor thin,” he said. “We needed three points out of this one, so this might be it.”

Against the Wildcats, Bainbridge got on the board first, with a bit more than a half hour left in the first half. That was it goal-wise for the island team, though. And the visitors started to put more distance between themselves and the Spartans after evening things up about 10 minutes later.

“Our touch was off; we just weren’t connecting,” Keller said. “We didn’t have a lot of teeth going forward. We got in and around the top of the area, but very few shots off that were potentially troublesome.

“You can’t fault the effort,” he added. “We were as prepared as we could be and it just didn’t come off today, which is a bummer.”

The sole Spartan goal was scored by senior Jack-Henry Hung, and the trio of West Seattle goals too, Keller said, were scored by a single player — some due to prowess and at least one because of luck.

Good luck or bad depended on which team you were rooting for.

“The first [WS] goal was a tough one, on a corner,” Keller said. “I’d have liked to see somebody try to get a head on it or get in his way, but it was a great athletic goal on his part.

“The second one was off a mistake and we got punished for it, which can happen.

“The last one, he split our backs and got through,” the coach said. “It was kind of out of nothing … but that’s what can happen in soccer. You’re vulnerable on the break while we’re committing guys forward trying to get goal, and so we’re playing up high and he’s quick, a good player, and punished us.”

It was an especially disappointing result give it was the squad’s Senior Night ceremony, and BHS’ eight upperclassmen — Hung, Evan Bergen Epstein, Andy Von Bereghy, co-captain Max Johnson, Eros Jiminez, co-captain David Nikunen, Tyler Moravec and Grant Wolff — were recognized.

“We’re losing some great leaders, fantastic captains with Max and David this year,” Keller said. “In general, the mentality of this squad has been just really impressive on a regular basis. Not only are they talented players and skillful players, but they’ve been working really hard. They support each other well. It’s a tight group, they work really hard and they play hard; it’s a good balance.”

Though losing players to graduation was always tough, the coach said he was very hopeful about the future of the program given the roster of young talent on this year’s squad — and also the stellar example they’d had in those eight departing seniors.

“We got a lot of young guys ready to take up the mantle, and I’m just really glad that a lot of these young guys were able to be around those older players and have that example of what that level of class and effort and leadership amounts to,” Keller said.

“And just the fact that they were around that, and they can carry that culture forward, I told the captains even before the season started, they’d been putting in so much work on getting the team organized and together, there’s going to be a knockdown effect for years from the standard these guys have set. And that goes across to all the seniors.”