With a season-ending loss to Linn-Mar Wednesday night, Jefferson soccer coach Richard Appleby said goal keeper Maddy Webber needs some time off.

“She’s pretty beat up,” said the first-year J-Hawk mentor, who spent the previous five years as a Linn-Mar assistant. “She has a lot of aches and pains. It’s going to take her a month or two just to heal.

"I wish we could have given her a little more defense this year.”

The young and inexperienced Jefferson squad finished 3-15 by losing to the Lions, 4-1, in a regional semifinal at Linn-Mar Stadium.

And once again, Webber pretty much was her team’s defense.

The Class 3A top-ranked and undefeated Lions (18-0) took 21 shots on goal, and the J-Hawk junior goalie saved 17 of them. That’s nothing new, noted Appleby.

“She had 225 this season. Most of the others we’ve played have only 60 or so,” he said.

All-district keeper Rylie Frese of Linn-Mar, for instance, has 61 saves for the season. With a much more stout defensive unit to protect her, Frese faced just a single shot on Wednesday. And that one got by her for Jefferson’s only goal.

“Their keeper played a tremendous game,” said Linn-Mar Coach Steve Dickinson. “And I told her that.

“She had four or five really beautiful saves, not just normal. She kept them in the game.”

His much more tournament-tested Lions, who face Kennedy in the regional final Monday at 6 p.m. at Linn-Mar Stadium, scored right off the bat Wednesday.

With barely a minute gone, sophomore Claire Larson passed to senior Brooke Roberts in the open field and she rifled it past Webber.

Jefferson, which lost to Linn-Mar 3-0 last week in the regular season, came right back to tie it six minutes later, though. J-Hawk freshman Taylor Kinney, in her first game back after missing a month with a concussion, spotted big sister Shalyn downfield.

After juking Frese, who’d come out of the net, Shalyn (a junior) rifled it home. “It was good to have Taylor back,” she said. “We work well together.”

Linn-Mar took the lead again at the 18-minute mark when Larson bounced the ball off the top of the goal on an assist from Olivia Garcia.

The Lions scored twice more in the second half, first on a penalty kick by Garcia and then on a sweet header by Garcia with five minutes to go.

“We knew it would be a tight game,” said Dickinson. “They’re a well-coached team and they stayed organized.”

Appleby said he was pleased that his underclassman-dominated team didn’t buckle when they fell behind so soon. “I was proud of the way the girls fought back,” he said. “And that was against the number one team in the state.”

A bedraggled Webber, meanwhile, was no worse for wear after being under siege for a full 80 minutes.

“We’re rebuilding,” she pointed out. “But we’ve really improved as the season has gone on. We’ll be much better next year.”