DES MOINES — Des Moines Hoover proved it was better than the Ottumwa boys soccer squad on this evening.

An opportunity for a first-ever CIML Metro title for the Bulldogs also went by the wayside in each team’s showdown in Polk County on Monday night.

The Huskies stopped Ottumwa 3-1 in the Bulldogs’ last match of the season. The Bulldogs didn’t get on the board until Joe Roark slipped one past the Husky goalie with five seconds left in the contest.

According to Ottumwa head coach David Schwent, Hoover remains undefeated in the conference with league games remaining against Des Moines Roosevelt and Des Moines Lincoln.

Ottumwa ends the regular season with a mark of 10-2 in 3-2 in league play. Had Ottumwa won versus Hoover, the Bulldogs would have had a shot at a league crown, had Hoover lost one of their last remaining two Metro tilts.

“A 10-2 record doesn’t mean anything if the last of your games was a crappy game like today. It didn’t show the work that we put in the season,” said a frustrated Schwent.

The Bulldogs begin postseason play at Muscatine this Saturday at noon in Class 2A Substate 8 play. The immediacy of playing well will never be more of an issue than in that postseason matchup with Muscatine.

“Honestly, we weren’t in it from the get-go. We should have competed better than we did,” said Schwent. “We never got a game going. We had very few shots on goal and never seemed to show up. That’s not what you want in your last week.”

Hoover capitalized on Ottumwa’s slow start to the match with a goal in the first two minutes, followed by the last score of the first half at the 20th minute.

The Huskies scored on a penalty kick midway through the second half for their final goal.

Schwent compares Hoover’s talent to Muscatine, proving it will be another tall task on a team’s home-playing surface this weekend. Slow starts have been an Achilles’ heel for Ottumwa this season.

“We have to show up and it has to be from the beginning. Our okay game is good enough to keep people from scoring. Today we didn’t have that okay part. We struggled to hang on,” said Schwent.