bartlesville soccer: bruins continue in semifinals; faces broken arrow on Tuesday
Bartlesville High School’s goalie Klayton Bastings (01) goal kicks during an earlier season game. The Bruins are in the Class 6A semifinals. They take on Broken Arrow on Tuesday night.
BECKY BURCH/Bartlesville Area Sports
By Mike Tupa
May 12, 2025
BARTLESVILLE AREA SPORTS REPORT
Like Captain Kirk and the crew of the ship USS Enterprise the Bartlesville High School boys soccer team is going to frontiers never before visited in its history.
When sophomore Carnell Lusuli zapped the decisive goal Friday night, the Bruins zoomed into the Class 6A state semifinals, set for Tuesday at 7 p.m. in Broken Arrow.
Lusuli capped a perfect barrage of Bruin kickers in the sudden death overtime to beat Northwest Classen in Friday’s quarterfinals played in Oklahoma City.
A huge crowd of strong-lunged Bartlesville faithful were on hand.
“We had an excellent following to Oklahoma City,” said Bruin assistant coach Hosteen Walsh. “The crowd was very loud on both sides of the field. The noise was very loud for a high school penalty kick shootout.”
In order to arrive at the shootout, the teams tied in regulation at 1-1 — with Braxton Decker scoring in the second half for Bartlesville, off an Austin Bastings’ assist — and then scrap through two scoreless overtime periods.
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Bartlesville High School’s Ariel Robledo (18) sends the ball upfield during an earlier season game. The Bruins are in the Class 6A semifinals. They take on Broken Arrow on Tuesday night.
BECKY BURCH/Bartlesville Area Sports
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The shootout came down to each side awarded five penalty kick attempts, one each by five different players, in order to try to break the tie.
Bartlesville (8-6) won the shootout, five to four, off goals by Bastings, Decker, James Wehmeyer, David Fries and Lusuli. On the other side, meanwhile, Bartlesville goalie Klayton Bastings made a stop on a NW Classen attempt for the winning save.
Thus continued the amazing journey of the Bruin team — from an 0-3-0 season start to the program’s furthest excursion into the state playoffs.
Cedric Muteshi is the Bruins’ head coach and chief captain on this exciting trajectory toward destiny.
“Coach Cedric has been telling the boys all season it’s just win-by-win and based on hard work and dedication,” Walsh said. “He said this was a complete team win.”
The Bruins have already faced Broken Arrow. In a down-to-the-wire thriller on April 22 at Custer Stadium, Broken Arrow (15-2) had to dig as deep as it could to yank out a victory in overtime, 2-1.
Bartlesville is 5-2 in its last seven matches — all seven of them decided by one goal or in a shootout.