Tuesday’s 1-1 tie with Kentlake was a bitter pill for the Auburn boys soccer squad to swallow.

After going up 1-0 in the opening minutes of the second half, courtesy of an Adan Guiterrez goal, the Trojans gave up a goal to Greg Gordon at the 60-minute mark, relegating themselves to a tie at French Field.

“I thought we played really well,” Auburn coach John Yorke said. “We had our chances to score. We just needed to finish up. The one we gave up was unfortunate. We needed that three (points) tonight, to be honest.”

Now, with a 3-5-4 record and an outside shot at making the fifth and final postseason slot in the South Puget Sound League North 4A race, the Trojans are hoping to make the most out of the remaining four regular-season games.

“We’re trying to get into that last playoff spot, that’s where we’d like to be,” Yorke said.

To achieve their postseason dream, the Trojans will lean hard on their veteran defensive players, including all-SPSL North 4A second-team seniors Aaron McMahon and Riley Dewing, as well as three-year starter Joan Toscano, another senior.

“They bring a lot of experience. They bring a little toughness as well,” Yorke said. “Aaron is a tough kid. He’s got a lot of strength and a lot of speed. He’s got some physical ability and brings a football mentality.

“Riley is probably our best all-around player and athlete,” he continued. “He brings a little bit of technical ability that we maybe don’t have a lot of. He can be dangerous in the attack. He’s a good two-way guy.”

The team also looks to senior goalkeeper Juan Monroy – an all-SPSL North 4A honorable-mention performer last season – to remain steadfast between the pipes.

Yorke relies on Monroy, Toscano, Dewing and McMahon for leadership as the team’s co-captains, a unique arrangement that reflects the team’s cultural diversity.

“We’re very split down the middle with half of our team being Hispanic and half Caucasian,” Yorke said. “They get along very well, but it’s good to have a little bit of influence from both sides with the team leadership. What we’ve tried to do is bring our diversity together through the way our captains interact with each other. And they do a great job of bringing them together. The team is very close.”

Yorke said he formulated the quad-captain concept from his experience with past teams.

“Not that there has been any animosity between the groups, but there has been cultural

differences,” he said. “There has been communication issues, and the mentality on both sides can be different about what’s important and what’s not. But they’ve really kind of meshed and done a good job of coming together.”

Auburn’s unity, coupled with its scrappy play on the pitch, makes Yorke believe it has the moxie to move on to the postseason.

“They all work hard they’re very coachable,” Yorke said. “They’re able to take tactical instruction and apply it. We’re a scrappy team. We work hard and challenge the other team.”

Yorke continued:

“We’re playing a lot better in the second half than we did in the first half of the season, and with that there is some excitement,” he said. “We talk about not focusing on the playoffs and where we want to go. We try to focus on giving our best effort, every minute of every game. We feel like if we can do that, we’re going to compete at the highest level we can and maybe we slip in there.”