Courtesy Photo Alpena’s Cam Young (19) battles a Petoskey player for control of the ball during a district final on Saturday in Petoskey

PETOSKEY — The Alpena High boys soccer team’s season came to an end Saturday.

The Wildcats fell short in the district finals to Petoskey, ending with a 4-1 final score.

Although Alpena couldn’t pull out the win in the district finals, the team finished with a 14-5-3 record and won two playoff games.

“I’m proud of them and they played well. We made some big strides and did a lot of great things this season,” Alpena coach Tim Storch said. “I don’t want this game to detract from what we have done as a team this season because they were a very good team and we just didn’t have it tonight.”

Alpena got itself into a deficit early, awarding a penalty kick to Petoskey within the first five minutes of the game. Kurtis Mainland capitalized on the Wildcats’ early mistake by scoring the first goal of the game. The 1-0 lead gave Petoskey some early momentum.

The Wildcats’ defense continued to struggle for the remainder of the first half, as the Northmen struck again. This time with 13:03 left, Charlie Smith scored which extended Petoskey’s lead further.

Petoskey maintained constant pressure on the Alpena net until the Northmen scored again. Sawyer Webster scored an impressive goal that nearly put the game out of reach in just the first half.

“We needed to play mistake-free soccer and we just didn’t do that. Giving up the penalty kick in just the first five minutes really hurt. When we went down three to nothing that early, we knew we couldn’t allow that to happen to a team as good as they are,” Storch said.

Now that Petoskey had a 3-0 lead over Alpena entering halftime, the Wildcats needed a spectacular second half in order to come back.

Noah Bodurka and the Northmen were not going to let Alpena come back though. With 28:39 remaining in the second half, Bodurka scored Petoskey’s fourth goal of the game, giving them a 4-0 lead over the Wildcats.

The defense continued to play great all game long for Petoskey, but Alpena did manage to score once in the final minutes. Austin Townsend scored his last goal as a Wildcat and Alpena’s final goal of the season.

“This is our second district final in the last three years. That’s an accomplishment, that we’ve raised our program to that level where we are relevant. But to take the next step we need to win these games and not just get here,” Storch said.