Redmond’s Gill Friend, left, puts a move on teammate Kyler Daiker during a scrimmage at Redmond boys soccer team practice at Redmond High School Wednesday afternoon.

REDMOND — Back in late September, the Redmond boys soccer team had just taken down Bend High 4-0 at 15th Street Field and first-year Redmond coach T.J. Thrasher recalls a Bend High parent asking him: “When did you guys get good?”

It was a totally fair question. Since 2003, when Redmond lost in the big-school state championship match, winning seasons have been few and far between for the Panthers.

“I want to say that these kids were always this good,” Thrasher said. “And that this is just their time to shine.”

Since 2006 the Panthers have had more seasons (12) with three or fewer wins than playoff appearances (two) and more seasons ending without a victory (three) than winning seasons (one). And just last season, Redmond won just two games and lost every Intermountain Conference match.

“We may have been bad in the past,” said junior midfielder Carter Heikkila. “But this year we have flipped the script.”

With two matches left in the regular season, Redmond has secured a winning season, punched its ticket to the postseason and will finish second in the IMC.

Redmond has scored more goals (41) than it has in each of the previous 11 seasons. For a comparison, between the 2013 and 2017 seasons, the Panthers scored a combined 43 goals.

“We put in a lot of work during the offseason,” said senior midfielder Spencer Yuma. “And it feels good to finally be a winning team.”

Thrasher, who is in his first year as Redmond’s head coach, saw this coming years ago. His son Jack is a sophomore on the team, so he has been around this group of players since they were having success in youth soccer ranks.

But seeds of a successful season began to sprout during the summer.

The team went to Portland to play a couple of friendly matches and competed with teams like West Linn, a perennial 6A playoff team. Then the Panthers spent a couple days on the Oregon Coast, where they won the Cascadia Coast Cup. That was was where they built the team chemistry that has been vital to their success this fall.

By the time August rolled around and practices for the upcoming season began, the squad was locked in on altering the trajectory of the program. Attendance at daily-doubles, especially the early sessions that were filled with running drills, was the best that it had been in the memory of Thrasher, who had been a Redmond assistant coach for seven years before this season.

“Every one of these boys showed up and was ready to commit from Day 1 to put the work in because they knew the hard work would pay off,” Thrasher said. “Not one of these kids quit or didn’t show up.”

And the success during the summer carried over into the regular season. Three matches into the season, the Panthers had already reached last year’s win total. But it was starting IMC play with a 4-0 win over Bend High, Redmond’s first win over the Lava Bears in over a decade, that drove the point home.

“Once we started winning we knew how good of a team we really were,” said senior defender Parker Caldwell. “We knew we had a chance at the playoffs. So we set that as our goal and started to work hard toward that and it is all coming true.”

Then came more wins in the first round of league matches, with victories over Mountain View, Caldera and Ridgeview. The only IMC loss Redmond has this season is to Summit, the reigning 5A state champions.

“Once you start winning you don’t want to stop,” Caldwell said. “Once you get those first few wins, you keep beating these teams, you expect to win like you know you can. You aren’t scared or timid. You know you can go out and win.”

The Panthers will take on Caldera in Bend on Friday at 7 p.m. before playing their final game of the regular season at home against Ridgeview next Wednesday.

Then, for the first time since 2011, Redmond will be competing in the playoffs.

“The boys have been ready to climb and continue to take that next step,” Thrasher said. “To go from two wins last year to what we are doing now is just huge. They want to take that next step and make a deep run in the playoffs. The goal was initially to make the playoffs, but now they are looking beyond that.”