Ale gave out direct and strong words regarding his team’s performance in the loss, followed by even stronger words of encouragement and gratitude to his gathered players. He then made certain to recognize his team’s seniors, most of whom won’t take the field of play again for the rest of their lives while giving out hugs to almost every member of his team.

“Obviously we didn’t play well tonight, and we know we didn’t play well, but my focus at the end was the journey and everything we did to get here,” Ale said. “That’s what is most important, and this senior group is the first group for me that came up when I first started coaching here. So it was emotional for me, too.”

As Ale mentioned, the game unfortunately didn’t showcase the level of play Westlake has achieved in recent years, and certainly not throughout most of the 2026 season, which ended up with the Thunder capturing the No. 6 seed in the 6A playoffs.

The game started well enough, with Westlake taking the opening kickoff 75-yards with running back Ashton Taylor mashing his way into the endzone from one yard out to give the home team an early 7-0 amidst only some light rain at the time.

But the Titans responded quickly, scoring on two long touchdowns, which included a 68-yard touchdown run and a 55-yard touchdown pass. Taylor scored again from two yards out, but a closing first half touchdown by Syracuse by means of a 98-yard kickoff return set Westlake with a 21-13 deficit to overcome at the break.

“We gave up way too many big plays, and that was a big thing tonight,” Ale said. “I felt we did a good job with most of our drives, but the big plays — they killed us. We made too many errors in allowing those, and it cost us big time.”

And then the rains began in earnest, compounding any comeback effort considerably.

Indeed the second half proved to be largely a mess, as a result of the conditions. Multiple mishandled snaps, fumbles and a bevy of personal foul penalties committed by both sides defined a second half played through driving rain, although Ale didn’t want to use any of it as an excuse.

“Syracuse had to play in the same conditions, and they did it better than we did tonight,” Ale bluntly stated. “We didn’t do enough to win and we didn’t deserve to win. You have to find a way to win against a good opponent regardless of the conditions, and we didn’t do that. We made too many stupid mistakes, committed too many penalties, and that’s what happened.”

It was all a disappointing end to an otherwise successful season which saw the Thunder compile a 7-4 overall record and an aforementioned No. 6 seed in the state playoffs, which allowed them to host a quarterfinal game. But it unraveled during the second half of play with Syracuse scoring two more touchdowns to Westlake’s lone score, which happened to be Taylor’s third touchdown run of the game.

Disappointment aside, Ale, as mentioned, took time to focus on the team’s accomplishments and work put in by his entire team, but especially the seniors.

“These boys — 90 percent of them won’t ever play football again, so that makes you emotional and really appreciate the work and sacrifice they’ve all put in since I first got here at Westlake. I love those kids,” Ale concluded. “So that was the most important thing for me tonight was to recognize each of them ad let them know how much I love every single one of them for the young men they are.”