EASTON - The score may have been lopsided, but the experience was still worth it.

Tamaqua fell to Allentown Central Catholic by an 11-0 score in the first round of the District 11 Class 3A boys soccer playoffs on Monday. The Blue Raiders, the No. 12 seed, didn’t expect to make the postseason but a mistake in tabulating the rankings was made aware to them recently. The error was corrected, and the result was a playoff berth.

“It was a little rewarding to make the playoffs,” Tamaqua head coach Jim McCabe said. “We only found out Friday. We had a week-and-a-half layoff, but to get down here and the experience to play a very good team, whether it’s a win or loss, we wanted to compete.

“We came here to compete, we did our best and there’s no reason to put our head down. We just have to keep pushing forward and look to be a little bit better every second of every game.”

The fifth-seeded Vikings jumped out to an early lead thanks to two goals from senior John Peters. Isaac Wheeler followed those up with another tally, and David Werel then scored twice to up the advantage to 5-0.

The margin reached 8-0 by halftime.

The loss ended Tamaqua’s season at 6-13, a record that doesn’t indicate how competitive the Blue Raiders were this year.

“I think we had five one-goal losses,” McCabe said. “We were in a lot of games. We did a great job improving from last year. We had more shots in a single game this year than we did all of last year, when we struggled to get shots off.

“This year, we didn’t struggle to take shots and get them on goal. Sometimes, we were up to 18 shots on goal ... There are some things that need to be worked on over the offseason from that standpoint as well.”

Central didn’t have problems getting off shots, adding three more goals in the second half, two from Devon Theophille.

The win sends the Vikings, members of the always-tough Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, into the quarterfinal round, where they will face fourth-seeded Pine Grove.

“It’s one of the things I enjoy about our league is we play a lot of bigger schools and we get better by going against them,” Central Catholic head coach Taylor Holko said. “We get a really good chance to learn throughout the season, and we told them from day one our goal is win a district championship.

“It starts there and every day we’re trying to get better and improve. It’s one of the fun things about being in this league is almost every game is tough.”

The Vikings were 11-7 during the regular season, but won six of their final games to enter the postseason on a high note.

Tamaqua, meanwhile, was a bit opposite of their opponent. The Raiders started 4-3 and then dropped nine of their final 11 regular-season contest.

McCabe pointed out, though, that losses and a poor record aren’t the end of the world.

“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t enjoy it,” McCabe said. “These kids are great kids. I preach to them that a loss isn’t failure. If you do everything that you can do and you lose in the game, you lose a game. It doesn’t mean you’re a failure.

“It just means you lost the game. If they work hard through everything, it makes life easier then when they’re out of sports. That’s the main focus here.”

WORKING ON THINGS ... Central’s Holko talked more about getting into the district tournament and the way his team came out against Tamaqua. “It shows you something that we’ve been working on,” Holko said. “We’ve been trying to have games where we come out strong and hard ... It was a good opportunity for doing that, and I’m really proud of them for doing that. Give them credit. Tamaqua came out with good defensive stops early on, but our guys just kept pushing.”

TAMAQUA KEY WINS ... Tamaqua beat Pottsville and Northern Lehigh late in the season to help earn its playoff berth. The Blue Raiders swept Pottsville in their two games, with other wins coming against Palmerton, Catasauqua and Schuylkill Haven.