For the boys on the Tahoma High soccer team, it’s not so much a matter of wanting to turn back the clock.

But more than once this spring, they no doubt wish they could have stopped the clock – at, say, the 70-minute mark of a typical 80-minute game.

Those last 10 minutes have been a bear for the Bears. But that wasn’t the case on Tuesday night as they hung on to an early lead off a goal by Bryan Cackette to beat Kentridge in a South Puget Sound League North Division game at French Field, 1-0.

“Tonight was good for us – we finished out a game, and the kids deserved what they got,” coach Lance Fischbach said after Tahoma boosted its league record to 3-2-4 with 13 points, very much in the race for the third and fourth playoff spots in the North. “There’s some strong-willed guys (on the team) who have a belief that they can accomplish things. Those guys never wavered from what they were trying to accomplish, and the other guys caught on.”

The sore spot for Tahoma, however, is when the other guys – in this case, the guys in the other uniforms – caught up. Of the Bears’ six ties, five were the result of goals allowed during the last 10 minutes of the game, with three of those coming in the last five minutes.

“Certainly, a lot of kids were rattled and questioning things,” Fischbach said. “But the kids have done a good job of holding themselves accountable and (staying) respectable and classy.

“We could have folded easily starting out as we did,” he added. “They just gained a little confidence and kept pushing forward, and the guys haven’t given up hope.”

Cackette, who tallied five goals and three assists in 2007, got onto the board for the first time this season when he found the net against Kentridge. On a counterattack down the left wing, Cackette got the ball from Britton Jolley, and, playing just to the left of the penalty area, launched a riser into the back right corner beyond the reach of Chargers goalkeeper Nik Sever.

“That was great for him,” Fischbach said. “He has had some great chances. It was nice to get a monkey off his back.”

Chad Burgess and John Thompson shared in the shutout for Tahoma.

• ALSO: Ryan Curtis and Michael Fuller each had a goal and an assist, and Danny Brill scored his team-leading sixth goal of the season as Kentwood blanked Kent-Meridian on Tuesday, 5-0, remaining atop the SPSL North standings at 7-1-0 (21 points).