St. Joseph comes back, derails Saint Viator
Undefeated Chargers erase 2-0 deficit, win in PKs
By Matt Le Cren
HOFFMAN ESTATES – St. Joseph came into Friday’s Class 2A state semifinals with an unbeaten record. The Chargers had never trailed in a match all season.
So you can imagine how surprised they were when Saint Viator scored twice in the first half to grab a 2-0 lead at intermission.
“The funny thing was everybody at half looked like a little bit dazed,” St. Joseph coach Stan Niemiec said. “We didn’t know what to do. We were losing so I think we kind of got in our own heads that we didn’t play Charger soccer.
“That was what the goal of our speech was, to get back to our game, and I think you could see it. I don’t think [the Lions] had a shot on goal for at least 30 minutes in that second half. We really came out and did what we needed to do.”
Indeed, the Chargers (23-0-1) rallied to send the game into extra time and hung tough through two see-saw overtime periods and a 5-4 penalty kick advantage to beat Saint Viator in Hoffman Estates.
St. Joseph will try to win its first state title when it takes on Wheaton Academy, a 4-0 winner over Springfield, in Saturday’s 1 p.m. championship match. It is the second state title game appearance for the Chargers, who lost to Springfield 7-0 in the 1997 Class A final, and the first for the Warriors.
But for 40 minutes Friday, a shot at the state title appeared out of reach as Saint Viator (21-6-2) utterly dominated the action.
Zach Gyuricza scored five minutes in when he ran onto a long diagonal ball from defender Ryan Carroll and beat Chargers goalie Jonathan Rosales with a 15-yard shot.
The goal stunned Rosales, who had not been tested often this fall.
“It was a counterattack,” Rosales said. “I didn’t expect them to come at me right away at five minutes into the game. They scored on me right away and I didn’t expect that. I expected the defense to step up a little bit more and not allow them to come at me like that.”
But the Lions came at Rosales in waves. Gyuricza was in the thick of things again with 12:27 left in the first half when he sent a cross from the left corner that was volleyed home by fellow senior Aidan Williams for a 2-0 lead.
While St. Joseph matched Saint Viator’s 10 shots in the first half, most of them were well off-target. Not so the attempts by the Lions, who were unlucky not to be up by four or five goals at intermission.
Williams hit the left post with a shot and Rosales made two diving stops from point blank range on Gyuricza, who also barely missed a pair of shots from distance. Anthony Pineda also had a golden opportunity but fired wide from eight yards out with Rosales down after a stop on Gyuricza.
“I think we shot ourselves in the foot in the first half,” Saint Viator coach Mike Taylor said. “It could easily have been 4-0 or 5-0 at halftime. We had a couple came off the bars we thought went in and a couple just missed.
“Sometimes when you don’t take care of the opportunities that you’ve got and put teams away, it comes back to haunt you. I think that’s what happened in that game. We had control of it. We were unlucky having a couple balls hitting on the bars. How they didn’t go in I don’t know.
“Then you allow a team as good as that – they’re undefeated – to hang around and they’ll punish you. They got one goal that gave them some confidence, and they came back and picked up another one.”
Niemiec made sure his team remained calm during his halftime speech and tried to take the pressure off his players.
“We played like garbage the whole first half,” Niemiec said. “We’ve done it before but luckily we came into half 0-0.
“But today we were not so lucky. We come in 2-0 [down], dazed and confused. I’m just happy they came out and decided we’re going to play Charger soccer and play how we played this year.
“I said forget the lights. This is still a high school field. We’re not playing in the Premier League. This is another high school team we’re playing; it’s okay. You can make mistakes but you’ve got to eliminate them.”
The Chargers did just that and came out firing in the second half, scoring twice in less than four minutes. Aaron Rivera put St. Joseph on the board off an assist from Eduardo Gutierrez at the 32:03 mark and then Gutierrez tied the game when he roofed a shot from short range with 28:20 to go.
“[The first half] was terrible but everybody kept our heads up,” Gutierrez said. “We were all taking during the halftime. I just told everybody, me being a senior I definitely felt I didn’t want to feel that feeling being down 2-0.
“I basically said we have 40 minutes of soccer left, don’t leave anything, we’re not going home. Just words of encouragement to get the boys fired up.”
Both sides were fired up the rest of the way.
The Lions had the best chance to win in regulation, but in a portent of things to come, Rosales made a great diving effort to knock a hard 12-yard shot from Williams wide of the right post with 5:05 left. He made four saves in regulation but all were tough.
“He made a couple good of saves in that first half when they ricocheted off bars,” Taylor said. “How they came back to him and he managed to save those balls, [I] don’t know. That happens a lot of times in games where you can’t understand where balls go in different places, but they do.”
The two overtime periods were mirror images of the first two halves. The Chargers grabbed a 3-2 lead on Gutierrez’s second goal of the game and 22nd of the season with 5:29 left in the first extra session. Toni Orozco had the assist, his first of the season.
But the Lions rallied for the equalizer at the 4:37 mark of the second overtime when Gyuricza dribbled to the left endline and rolled a cross in front to Williams for a tap-in goal.
“My boys showed how resilient they are,” Taylor said. “They come back to score another one to tie it up 3-3. We’ve had a never-say-die attitude all year long and I’m very proud of them for that.
“It was a tale of two halves. In high school momentum switches like that, and I think that’s sometimes the waves that you’ve got to ride and put together from there.”
In the final minute of overtime it was Saint Viator goalie Aaron Tres’ turn to save the day as he stopped a bullet from Gutierrez with 20 seconds remaining for his ninth save to send the match to penalties.
The shootout was anticlimactic as the first nine shooters all scored.
Williams, Gyuricza, Miles McDonnell and Anthony Pineda converted for Saint Viator, while Manny Lopez, Gutierrez, Anthony Gulli and Victor Moreno tallied for St. Joseph.
Javier Romero was the fifth shooter for the Lions and Rosales lunged to his right to knock it away. Aaron Rivera then clinched the victory by making his attempt.
“I was a little more pumped up,” Rosales said. “That was the reason I actually blocked the PK and also because of what I remember Jovani Castanon taught me.”
Castanon was the goalie on St. Joseph’s 2008 team that finished third in the state. He was in the stands Friday.
“He has taught me a lot of things and he taught me how a kicker’s body language [is a tell],” Rosales said. “I have to make a decision where to go – right or left.
“Jovani was there with me outside in the stands and he was telling me, ‘Remember what I taught you, Jonathan, remember what I taught you.’ I heard those words and I instantly put my game on, and I decided to go to my left because I knew the shooter was going to his right.”
Starting lineups
St. Joseph
GK Jonathan Rosales
D Isaac Barboza
D Toni Orozco
D Sebastain Gomez
M Aaron Rivera
M Jacob Hansen
M Victor Moreno
M Manny Lopez
M Jovany Aceves
M Anthony Gulli
F Eduardo Gutierrez
Saint Viator
GK Aaron Tres
D Ryan Carroll
D Brandon Braun
D Chris Beiersdorf
M Javier Romero
M Miles McDonnell
M Anthony Pineda
M Patrick Hickey
F Zach Gyuricza
F Sean Lonigro
F Aidan Williams
Man of the Match: Jonathan Rosales, St. Joseph
Referees – John Anderson (center), Jeff Ryder, John Martelin, Mario Castillo (fourth)
Undefeated Chargers erase 2-0 deficit, win in PKs
By Matt Le Cren
HOFFMAN ESTATES – St. Joseph came into Friday’s Class 2A state semifinals with an unbeaten record. The Chargers had never trailed in a match all season.
So you can imagine how surprised they were when Saint Viator scored twice in the first half to grab a 2-0 lead at intermission.
“The funny thing was everybody at half looked like a little bit dazed,” St. Joseph coach Stan Niemiec said. “We didn’t know what to do. We were losing so I think we kind of got in our own heads that we didn’t play Charger soccer.
“That was what the goal of our speech was, to get back to our game, and I think you could see it. I don’t think [the Lions] had a shot on goal for at least 30 minutes in that second half. We really came out and did what we needed to do.”
Indeed, the Chargers (23-0-1) rallied to send the game into extra time and hung tough through two see-saw overtime periods and a 5-4 penalty kick advantage to beat Saint Viator in Hoffman Estates.
St. Joseph will try to win its first state title when it takes on Wheaton Academy, a 4-0 winner over Springfield, in Saturday’s 1 p.m. championship match. It is the second state title game appearance for the Chargers, who lost to Springfield 7-0 in the 1997 Class A final, and the first for the Warriors.
But for 40 minutes Friday, a shot at the state title appeared out of reach as Saint Viator (21-6-2) utterly dominated the action.
Zach Gyuricza scored five minutes in when he ran onto a long diagonal ball from defender Ryan Carroll and beat Chargers goalie Jonathan Rosales with a 15-yard shot.
The goal stunned Rosales, who had not been tested often this fall.
“It was a counterattack,” Rosales said. “I didn’t expect them to come at me right away at five minutes into the game. They scored on me right away and I didn’t expect that. I expected the defense to step up a little bit more and not allow them to come at me like that.”
But the Lions came at Rosales in waves. Gyuricza was in the thick of things again with 12:27 left in the first half when he sent a cross from the left corner that was volleyed home by fellow senior Aidan Williams for a 2-0 lead.
While St. Joseph matched Saint Viator’s 10 shots in the first half, most of them were well off-target. Not so the attempts by the Lions, who were unlucky not to be up by four or five goals at intermission.
Williams hit the left post with a shot and Rosales made two diving stops from point blank range on Gyuricza, who also barely missed a pair of shots from distance. Anthony Pineda also had a golden opportunity but fired wide from eight yards out with Rosales down after a stop on Gyuricza.
“I think we shot ourselves in the foot in the first half,” Saint Viator coach Mike Taylor said. “It could easily have been 4-0 or 5-0 at halftime. We had a couple came off the bars we thought went in and a couple just missed.
“Sometimes when you don’t take care of the opportunities that you’ve got and put teams away, it comes back to haunt you. I think that’s what happened in that game. We had control of it. We were unlucky having a couple balls hitting on the bars. How they didn’t go in I don’t know.
“Then you allow a team as good as that – they’re undefeated – to hang around and they’ll punish you. They got one goal that gave them some confidence, and they came back and picked up another one.”
Niemiec made sure his team remained calm during his halftime speech and tried to take the pressure off his players.
“We played like garbage the whole first half,” Niemiec said. “We’ve done it before but luckily we came into half 0-0.
“But today we were not so lucky. We come in 2-0 [down], dazed and confused. I’m just happy they came out and decided we’re going to play Charger soccer and play how we played this year.
“I said forget the lights. This is still a high school field. We’re not playing in the Premier League. This is another high school team we’re playing; it’s okay. You can make mistakes but you’ve got to eliminate them.”
The Chargers did just that and came out firing in the second half, scoring twice in less than four minutes. Aaron Rivera put St. Joseph on the board off an assist from Eduardo Gutierrez at the 32:03 mark and then Gutierrez tied the game when he roofed a shot from short range with 28:20 to go.
“[The first half] was terrible but everybody kept our heads up,” Gutierrez said. “We were all taking during the halftime. I just told everybody, me being a senior I definitely felt I didn’t want to feel that feeling being down 2-0.
“I basically said we have 40 minutes of soccer left, don’t leave anything, we’re not going home. Just words of encouragement to get the boys fired up.”
Both sides were fired up the rest of the way.
The Lions had the best chance to win in regulation, but in a portent of things to come, Rosales made a great diving effort to knock a hard 12-yard shot from Williams wide of the right post with 5:05 left. He made four saves in regulation but all were tough.
“He made a couple good of saves in that first half when they ricocheted off bars,” Taylor said. “How they came back to him and he managed to save those balls, [I] don’t know. That happens a lot of times in games where you can’t understand where balls go in different places, but they do.”
The two overtime periods were mirror images of the first two halves. The Chargers grabbed a 3-2 lead on Gutierrez’s second goal of the game and 22nd of the season with 5:29 left in the first extra session. Toni Orozco had the assist, his first of the season.
But the Lions rallied for the equalizer at the 4:37 mark of the second overtime when Gyuricza dribbled to the left endline and rolled a cross in front to Williams for a tap-in goal.
“My boys showed how resilient they are,” Taylor said. “They come back to score another one to tie it up 3-3. We’ve had a never-say-die attitude all year long and I’m very proud of them for that.
“It was a tale of two halves. In high school momentum switches like that, and I think that’s sometimes the waves that you’ve got to ride and put together from there.”
In the final minute of overtime it was Saint Viator goalie Aaron Tres’ turn to save the day as he stopped a bullet from Gutierrez with 20 seconds remaining for his ninth save to send the match to penalties.
The shootout was anticlimactic as the first nine shooters all scored.
Williams, Gyuricza, Miles McDonnell and Anthony Pineda converted for Saint Viator, while Manny Lopez, Gutierrez, Anthony Gulli and Victor Moreno tallied for St. Joseph.
Javier Romero was the fifth shooter for the Lions and Rosales lunged to his right to knock it away. Aaron Rivera then clinched the victory by making his attempt.
“I was a little more pumped up,” Rosales said. “That was the reason I actually blocked the PK and also because of what I remember Jovani Castanon taught me.”
Castanon was the goalie on St. Joseph’s 2008 team that finished third in the state. He was in the stands Friday.
“He has taught me a lot of things and he taught me how a kicker’s body language [is a tell],” Rosales said. “I have to make a decision where to go – right or left.
“Jovani was there with me outside in the stands and he was telling me, ‘Remember what I taught you, Jonathan, remember what I taught you.’ I heard those words and I instantly put my game on, and I decided to go to my left because I knew the shooter was going to his right.”
Starting lineups
St. Joseph
GK Jonathan Rosales
D Isaac Barboza
D Toni Orozco
D Sebastain Gomez
M Aaron Rivera
M Jacob Hansen
M Victor Moreno
M Manny Lopez
M Jovany Aceves
M Anthony Gulli
F Eduardo Gutierrez
Saint Viator
GK Aaron Tres
D Ryan Carroll
D Brandon Braun
D Chris Beiersdorf
M Javier Romero
M Miles McDonnell
M Anthony Pineda
M Patrick Hickey
F Zach Gyuricza
F Sean Lonigro
F Aidan Williams
Man of the Match: Jonathan Rosales, St. Joseph
Referees – John Anderson (center), Jeff Ryder, John Martelin, Mario Castillo (fourth)