Senior Jair Valdovinos has taken over as the leading scorer for Brookings-Harbor (Jim Liaty/Wild Coast Compass)

Heading into the boys soccer season, Brookings-Harbor had lots of question marks after graduating six starters from a 3A/2A/1A quarterfinalist.

Last year’s seniors also were part of the program when the Bruins were highly successful in 4A -- reaching the semifinals in 2016 and 2017 -- so how the team would respond in their absence was anybody’s guess.

“I wasn’t sure what we were going to be,” coach Jess Beaman said. “We were pretty young. I had some returning kids that were good, but I wasn’t sure how the other ones were going to step up and handle it.”

It turns out, pretty well.

Brookings-Harbor has outscored its opponents 100-3 in winning all 13 of its matches. The Bruins, repeat champions in Special District 4, are No. 4 in the OSAAtoday coaches poll and No. 3 in the OSAA power rankings.

“This team is a little bit more soccer savvy,” Beaman said. “More of these kids don’t do double sports, they just do soccer. It’s pretty much what they live for.

“They’re fun to watch. They pass the ball really well. They move really well as a unit. They know it takes all 11 of them out there to make anything happen.”

Brookings-Harbor (13-0, 13-0) graduated its leading scorer in Luke Beaman, but senior Jair Valdovinos has filled the role as the go-to striker, regularly scoring three or more goals in a match. The Bruins are getting offense from throughout their lineup, including sophomore Fabian Villa, junior Rylan Bruce and freshmen Josh Serna and Kallen Christensen.

It’s a bit different than last season, when Luke Beaman drew heavy attention from opponents and other players sometimes had difficulty capitalizing on their own.

“This year everyone moves around, and we don’t have one scorer, we have multiple scorers,” Jess Beaman said. “We have to use everybody out there to do what they need to do.”

The team’s five returning starters are Valdovinos, Villa, junior Hobbes Howard, sophomore Jake Beaman and junior goalkeeper Juan Hernandez. Valdovinos and Harrison Nelson are the only seniors starting.

“Lots of sophomores and juniors had to step up,” Jess Beaman said. “The sophomore class is a pretty strong class, so they’ve been able to step in there and handle being on the varsity level.”

The Bruins showed promise early when they held their own in a jamboree against 6A Grants Pass, 4A Cottage Grove and 4A Phoenix.

They opened the season with a 19-0 win over Gold Beach/Pacific, and in their second match, they rolled 5-1 at Umpqua Valley Christian, last year’s district runner-up. They put a virtual lock on the district title Oct. 10 with a 2-0 home win over Umpqua Valley Christian (11-3, 10-3).

The biggest setback the team has encountered came Sept. 24 when sophomore forward Bryan Valdovinos suffered a broken leg against Sutherlin.

“He’s a big loss for us,” Jess Beaman said. “He’s just that invisible player. You can’t really tell what he does for us, but when he’s gone, it’s a little bit different style for us to score. He usually put it right on somebody’s foot to score.”

Like last year – because they are locked into two rounds of district play and can’t schedule nonleague matches -- Brookings-Harbor has not played a team ranked in the top 10 of the coaches poll. Jess Beaman is concerned that dominating the district can lull his team into complacency.

“It’s hard to keep them working hard and training because they just think, ‘Oh, yeah, we’re doing great,’” he said. “We’ve got to be ready because we’ve got good teams coming.”

Because Glide forfeited a league match to the Bruins, they were able to schedule a nonleague home game against 4A Marshfield (8-5) for Wednesday.

“Hopefully Marshfield will give us a good game, get us a little bit more prepared for the playoffs,” Jess Beaman.