BELLVILLE — The Clear Fork Colts had the 2026 season circled since this year’s senior group first stepped on a varsity soccer field four years ago.
On Friday, Aug. 14, the Colts got off to the start they wanted with a 7-1 victory over the Madison Rams on Friday Night Futbol.
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The Colts got two goals and an assist from Kabuto Setser while Finn McAuley and Kade Beachy had one goal and one assist apiece, AJ Sendal, Owen Weikle and Barrett Walter had one goal apiece and Jonny Annis added an assist.
“We have been preparing for Madison all summer,” Setser said. “We knew they are a formidable opponent. In the second half, we made sure to keep our composure and play our game. It feels great to kick the season off with a win like this.”
Clear Fork held a 3-0 lead at the half as Madison was just a few inches away from a 3-2 game after clanking two off the post. The Rams struck first in the second half off an Easton Grant penalty kick, but Clear Fork answered with four unanswered goals to close out the game when they finally got back to what made them successful in the first place.
“We had that conversation at halftime because that wasn’t the team we had seen all summer,” Clear Fork coach Nate Gailey said. “We were playing a different pace than what our style calls for. We want to possess and pass the ball around and we were settling for shots outside of the 18 and got back and forth. We did a better job of playing our game in the second half.”
Madison (0-1) entered the 2026 season with just one player who had any sort of varsity experience from last season after graduating 14 seniors from the 2025 squad. It is going to take some time and patience for the Rams to adjust to varsity soccer.
“That is probably true, but at the same time, I expect to win every game,” Madison coach Tim Lord said. “I don’t care who we play or what my team consists of, the goal is to win the game and give each other everything we have to do that. At the same time, we know we are going to get better.”
And he felt the Rams did get better throughout the evening. They will try to build on Game 1 with a home game against Shawnee on Aug. 19.
“I told the guys that I have coached a lot of games in my career and I have had wins that I wasn’t proud of because of the way we played and losses that I was happy with because we played extremely hard and this is one of them,” Lord said. “They gave me everything. We just made some mistakes that Clear Fork capitalized on. Other than that, we were right there with them.”
Clear Fork took care of business in Game 1 of a season featuring sky-high expectations inside and outside of the program. After two straight district championships and a Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference title last season, the Colts returned nearly everyone for a repeat run during the golden age of Clear Fork soccer.
“The momentum is high and rightfully so, but the boys aren’t talking about it,” Gailey said. “They are all business. They wanted to come in here and beat a very well-coached team in Madison and after settling in and getting back to us in the second half, we saw a team playing with a lot of confidence.”
And the seniors know just how special this season could be.
“With 13 seniors, it is easy to have extremely high expectations,” Setser said. “We have all been playing together since we were little so there is an extra excitement for this year. We really feel like the sky is the limit this season.”
The Colts have been preparing for what can be in 2026 during the offseason. They will try to stack wins when they travel to Central Christian on Aug. 18.
“It is a testament to our senior class,” Gailey said. “They have put in a lot of work for four years for a special reason. They approached our summer workouts with high intensity and improved every day. Now, it is my job to push the right buttons and let them own the program they have built.”
This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Clear Fork kicks off season of high expectations with win over Madison