Southwestern soccer coach Taylor Meredith warned his team to slow down the pace of play to make the most of each situation in the final minutes of a tie match Saturday morning.

That failure to change the mindset proved costly for the Class A, No. 11 Spartans against Class A, No. 4 Providence.

Providence senior Billy Hoke, who already had two goals in the contest, centered the ball across the front of the Southwestern net which was not cleared. Providence junior Luke Jorden didn’t miss the opportunity to score the game-winning goal.

With three minutes and 43 seconds left in regulation, Jorden’s goal gave the visiting Pioneers a 3-2 victory. The defending Class A state champions improved to 5-2-1 this season.

“Not that we were playing for a tie but we were still playing like we were down,” said Meredith. “There was a lot of buildup to (that goal) that was wrong and, again, I thought we were playing crazy like we were down a goal again and had a couple of people out of position.”

Aiden Hartsell scored both of Southwestern’s goal to push his season total to 31 – four short of tying the program record for a season – and career total to 95 – already a program record.

Hartsell’s first goal came in the match’s first 15 minutes Saturday when he raced down the far sideline, using his speed to get clearance, and fired a shot to the far corner past Providence goalkeeper Charlie Scott.

Nine minutes later, Hoke broke free from his defender and slipped a shot past Southwestern goalkeeper Eli Fix.

Hoke broke through the Southwestern defense early in the second half and beat Fix once again for a 2-1 lead.

Southwestern picked up the offensive push from there and found opportunities to tie the match. Off a Hartsell corner kick, Jordan Jones headed a shot that rose just over the top of the goal with 18 minutes left.

Six minutes later, Hartsell settled a Jonah DeArmitt pass into the middle of the field, eluded a defender and beat Scott to the far post to tie the match.

After Jorden put the Pioneers back in the lead, Southwestern got one final corner kick attempt from Hartsell but Scott rose above the bodies and punched the pass out toward midfield.

Saturday’s match was a potential semistate preview, should both teams get that far.

“There are always better teams out there than what we’ve been playing,” said Hartsell of the unique pairing. “We knew this would be the hardest match of the season when we scheduled them.”

The Spartans have never won a regional title but are experienced and have an elite scorer that opponents are now focusing on stopping.

“Early in the season, Aiden could kind of do his own thing and make it work,” said Meredith. “(Providence) knew Aiden going in. They were prepared for him. That is something we are going to have to work on at practice to give Aiden some different tools and give him some more support as well.”

The Spartans, 6-2 now, have two conference matches this week against Morristown Tuesday and Hauser Friday with another battle against a state-ranked team in Class A, No. 10 Lutheran (5-2-1) in between on Thursday.

“We are good. We knew we would have a test against Attucks (Southwestern’s only other loss this season, 3-1) and we knew this would be a test and we have Indy Lutheran coming up but we’ve already beaten everyone in our sectional,” said Meredith. “That’s a big confidence boost for these guys.”