For Cleburne soccer, it’s a matter of different year, same scenario as the Yellow Jackets are set to face Waxahachie in the Class 5A bidistrict playoffs for a second straight season. A year ago, the Jackets pulled off one of the biggest upsets in the state, knocking off No. 2-ranked Waxahachie, 2-0, in the opening round of the playoffs. This time around, while Waxahachie isn’t ranked No. 2 in the state, it’s still a matchup of District 10-5A champion (Waxahachie) vs. District 9-5A fourth seed (Cleburne) in the playoff opener. “[Revenge] is a powerful tool for them, that’s for sure,” Cleburne Coach Pete King said. “However, every team is different. I know it was an upset last year. I don’t think they’re ranked as high now as they were last year. But the revenge factor, you bet. Even if they had all new guys, which they don’t, there would be some revenge involved, for sure. If we did it once, we can do again is the type of mentality we have.” King said the Jackets and Indians share similarities in many areas of the game, so it makes it somewhat of a friendlier matchup for Cleburne as opposed to facing an entirely different type of opponent. “Like we saw last year, they run a system much like ours,” King said. “They possess the ball pretty well. It will be two teams trying to have solid possession. It will be two good teams going at it. It will be something but we’re looking forward to it.” One big difference between the two teams, King said, is their approach on restarts after a foul. “One thing they do different is they have faster and quicker restarts,” King said. “In other words, if it’s a foul, I like us — especially in offensive half — to take time to set up and create it. They don’t care, they’ll set it down and hit it to the nearest guy and set it up on a fly. They also work corners different than us. They also play three up front, so we’ve been preparing for that. We’re used to playing one on top.” King said Cleburne’s No. 1 area of focus against Waxahachie is consistently defending set pieces. “The biggest key to the game is defending set pieces, particularly corners,” King said. “Defending set pieces, free kicks, close free kicks and, of course, corners. They’re creative on their set pieces. We don’t know what’s coming. Crowley was, too. Crowley pasted us the first game and a lot of it was on set pieces because a lot of it was stuff we’ve never seen before. “The second time we played Crowley, we fared better and were a little more prepared for it. Knowing Waxahachie will have some creative set pieces, we’ve been trying to prepare for that in practice.” When Cleburne takes the field Thursday, it will be 16 days since their last game action. But King said he’s not concerned with the long lay-off. “I think the key is like how we do our tournament scheduling at the beginning of the year,” King said. “We never do a tournament the weekend before we start district, mostly because I want them to be hungry. So they finish their last tournament game then go 10 days before playing their next game. It’s pretty much close to that. “If we needed time to heal, we got that. We’re going to be anxious and hungry and ready to play. Just like we started district play against Everman after those 10 days off, we did pretty well. If you’re a player, all you want to do is hurry up and play so they’re going to be hungry and ready to go by the time Thursday rolls around.” King said if Cleburne is able to defend Waxhachie’s set piece plays and the Jacket defense, led by three-year starting goalkeeper Leo Vasquez, does its part to keep them in the game, he likes their chances. “We just need Leo to be Leo,” King said. “He doesn’t have to do anything more than he’s shown time and time again. If he plays his game, he’ll keep us in the game. In playoff season, it’s just ‘keep us in the game.’ If the defense and Leo can keep us in the game, we’re going to do just fine because our offense will do fine in return.” The Jackets and Indians are scheduled for a 7 p.m. first kick Thursday at Mansfield Legacy High School. The winner advances to the area playoffs against the Dallas Wilson-Dallas Hillcrest winner.