A slow start doomed the South Washington County Thunderbolts to the team’s first loss this fall, in the final game of the adapted soccer regular season.

The visiting South Suburban Jets (5-2-2) went home with a 7-4 victory over the Thunderbolts Wednesday at East Ridge. It was the first loss in nine games as South Washington fell to 7-1-1 on the season.

The Jets dominated the first half, taking a 5-0 lead into intermission. The Jets had five shots on goal in the first half to none for the Thunderbolts.

Down 7-1 early in the second half, South Washington scored the final three goals of the game, but it wasn’t enough to overcome South Suburban’s early advantage. Jordan Nde and Brayden Curtis each scored twice for the Thunderbolts in the second half.

The Thunderbolts won the first meeting between the two teams this season 7-2.

“Just coming to the ball more,” said Thunderbolts coach Jeff Figlmiller when asked what he talked to his team about after the game. “They need to come to the ball, when their guys coming down on their offense, down to our defense, the defense has got to step up and come onto the ball and they didn’t. And 42, I don’t know what his name was, but he came in and ate us alive. He has three goals in under two minutes. He had five of the seven goals. And then once we were able to close him down, we were already down 7 to 1.

“And it’s a hard way to come back and everybody is panicking because we weren’t used to being down,” Figlmiller continued. “And now we’re down and it surprised them. It surprised me. But you had the head official tonight and the other official that’s been reffing a long time. And they told us before the game that’s how the reffing is going to be at state tournament, so they called everything, which is good because you want to be ready for the state tournament.”

South Washington Country has already clinched an automatic spot in the upcoming adapted soccer state tournament as one of the number one seeds. The tournament will be held at White Bera Lake High School Friday, Nov. 14 and Saturday, Nov. 15.

Tournament quarterfinal round games are Friday, with semifinals, third place, consolation and finals set for Saturday.