Wheaton Academy 1 match from title
Warriors beat Springfield 4-0 for 1st state finals win
By Matt Le Cren
HOFFMAN ESTATES – Wheaton Academy had come up empty in its three previous state semifinal appearances and Warriors star Ty Seager had never scored a goal at the state finals.
Both droughts ended in emphatic fashion on Friday. Seager recorded a hat trick – increasing his goal output to 39 – to lead Wheaton Academy past Springfield 4-0 at the Class 2A state semifinals at Hoffman Estates.
The Warriors (24-1-1) will face another team trying to win its first state title, St. Joseph, in Saturday’s 1 p.m. championship match. St. Joseph, which lost the 1997 Class A title game in its only other appearance in a final, edged Saint Viator 5-4 on penalty kicks after ending two overtimes tied 3-3.
“I think there’s been a hunger about this team that’s been pretty unique just because we’ve been to this spot twice,” Wheaton Academy coach Jeff Brooke said. “I think from the get-go all the way back in August there was just a desire to get up each and every day and try to get to a point of excellence.
“They’ve kind of risen to the call. It’s been a really calm group, interestingly enough, but a very committed group and I think that’s just given us a little bit of hunger that I think you saw on the field today.”
Indeed, the Warriors put on a clinic in becoming just the second team to shut out Springfield (25-4), which had scored 119 goals and given up 25. The other squad to do it was Normal, which is playing in Saturday’s Class 3A final.
“We knew they scored a ton of goals and won 25 games,” Brooke said. “They played a lot of nice one- and two-touch passes, but we eliminated the time and space their central mids had.”
With the Warriors securing the midfield, Seager and his mates up front had room to create and they painted a pretty picture with several wonderful goals.
Seager, who has the school’s single-season scoring record, was particularly motivated to produce. He had been blanked in four previous games at the state finals, all of them losses.
The Warriors reached the semifinals in 2012 and 2013 but lost both games as well as the ensuing third place matches. They had also lost their only other semifinal match back in 2004, a Class A game under the old two-class system.
“[The hat trick] was great, especially having the privilege to play in two past years at state,” Seager said. “[I] was never able to score, so it felt good to put the ball in the net, and we had a lot of guys step up to make that happen.”
Seager scored the first three goals for the Warriors. The first two came six minutes apart in the first half, both on headers off set pieces.
The Warriors opened the scoring at the 27:09 mark when Jacob Kapitaniuk sent a free kick across midfield to senior defender Parker Setran on the right wing. Setran sent a long ball into the box toward Seager, who was near the edge of the six-yard box.
Springfield goalie Evan Wright hesitated for a split second before coming out and that was all Seager needed as he outjumped a defender and sent a backward header over Wright’s head.
“I got the ball, and I picked my head up,” Setran said. “I saw that Ty was in the box so I just tried to place it as close to the goal as I could to where Ty was, and he just made the run and finished it.”
Seager struck again with 21:42 remaining in the half. This time he ran from left to right in front of the Springfield net and leaped high in the air to nod Kapitaniuk’s corner kick under the crossbar for a 2-0 lead.
“The big thing our team talks about is just set pieces and that it can kind of change a game,” Seager said. “Especially with the crosses coming in it’s hard for a goalkeeper to decide whether to come out or stay in.
“We just played good balls in that were hard for the defense, and they ended up in the back of the net.”
The Warriors dominated the action in the first 40 minutes. They earned nine corner kicks and outshot the Senators 10-3.
Springfield did have a few chances, but Wheaton Academy goalie Drew Sezonov made two of his three saves, including a diving stop on an open 15-yard shot from Logan Willard at the 6:55 mark.
Willard came in having scored 37 goals but was held to just two shots by the Warriors, who registered their 16th shutout.
“I thought the first half we were down there and created some chances,” Springfield coach Pat Phillips said. “We just didn’t put anything on frame. We were one pass off, one step slow.”
Seager, in contrast, seemed a step ahead of everyone else as he earned Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match honors.
“He wants it,” Phillips said. “He attacks the ball. He’s big and strong, a powerful kid. He just flies to the ball.”
But Seager spent the final 11 minute of the half on the bench after receiving a yellow card. That left Brooke with an interesting decision on his hands at halftime: whether or not to sit Seager out in the second half and risk losing the lead or play him and risk another yellow card, which would result in a suspension for Saturday’s match.
Brooke opted to send Seager back into the fray to start the second half and Seager rewarded him with another goal and a 3-0 lead with 19:23 to go.
Senior midfielder Lucas Hoepner sent a pass up to Seager in the right side of the penalty area. Seager dribbled to the outside to shake a defender and then beat Wright with a sharply angled shot to the far post.
“Any time a yellow comes out it’s certainly on your mind,” Brooke said. “Once we got No. 3 we took him off the field, but Ty is such an athletic player but also very controlled.
“He doesn’t have a temper so we didn’t have any nerves putting him back on the field. He knows what he’s doing. We just wanted to be wise once we got No. 3.”
Even with Seager on the bench, the Warriors didn’t let up or miss a beat. Senior midfielder Patrick Kilgallon bagged his second goal of the season when he somehow sent a shot from a severe angle past Wright and inside the left post with 5:03 remaining. Senior Jha’Lon Johnson had the assist.
“I thought we came out and executed our system in a really good fashion,” Brooke said. “I don’t know if it’s the best we’ve played. We were great in the final third to get two corner goals like we did and then for Lucas to drop a ball on a dime like he did to Ty for No. 3 was just impressive on an individual level.
“Then for Kilgallon to drop the ball over the top into a window coming off the bench, keeping the level high, there’s a lot of positives.”
The most important one, of course, is that the Warriors earned their first shot at a state championship.
The school’s girls soccer team won state titles in 2004 and 2009.
“The girls have won it twice,” Brooke noted. “Their logo has two stars and ours has zero. The guys knew today was a moment where we could get to a level that no one had gone to.”
The prize on offer Saturday is especially meaningful to Wheaton Academy’s 13 seniors.
“It’s huge,” Seager said. “Obviously, we’ve been training for months and months to have this opportunity and we finally have it so, so we’re going to do everything we can to go out and get it.”
St. Joseph is 23-0-1 but has not played the caliber of opponents faced by the Warriors, who are brimming with confidence and determination.
“We came into this year and wanted to be a different team,” Hoepner said. “We wanted to have a different mindset as we work toward this goal of winning state.
“We put it all on the top of our lockers at the beginning of the year that we wanted to win this game and we wanted to win the next game. We accomplished [the first], and hopefully we’ll accomplish [the second] tomorrow.”
Starting lineups
Wheaton Academy
GK Drew Sezonov
D Michael Carver
D Andrew VanNispen
D Parker Setran
M Grant Rougas
M Jha’Lon Johnson
M Jacob Kapitaniuk
M Lucas Hoepner
F Luis Rocha
F Reid Culberson
F Ty Seager
Springfield
GK Evan Wright
D Jacob Gordy
D Carter Connolley
D Eri Heumann
D Colin Tierney
D Jack Sherrick
M Luke Reiser
M Kelby Phillips
M Evan Kuhn
F Nate Cheung
F Logan Willard
Man of the Match: Ty Seager, Wheaton Academy
Referees: Rich Goldberg (center), Gene Matlock, Thomas Schaefer, Jose Gonzales (fourth)
Warriors beat Springfield 4-0 for 1st state finals win
By Matt Le Cren
HOFFMAN ESTATES – Wheaton Academy had come up empty in its three previous state semifinal appearances and Warriors star Ty Seager had never scored a goal at the state finals.
Both droughts ended in emphatic fashion on Friday. Seager recorded a hat trick – increasing his goal output to 39 – to lead Wheaton Academy past Springfield 4-0 at the Class 2A state semifinals at Hoffman Estates.
The Warriors (24-1-1) will face another team trying to win its first state title, St. Joseph, in Saturday’s 1 p.m. championship match. St. Joseph, which lost the 1997 Class A title game in its only other appearance in a final, edged Saint Viator 5-4 on penalty kicks after ending two overtimes tied 3-3.
“I think there’s been a hunger about this team that’s been pretty unique just because we’ve been to this spot twice,” Wheaton Academy coach Jeff Brooke said. “I think from the get-go all the way back in August there was just a desire to get up each and every day and try to get to a point of excellence.
“They’ve kind of risen to the call. It’s been a really calm group, interestingly enough, but a very committed group and I think that’s just given us a little bit of hunger that I think you saw on the field today.”
Indeed, the Warriors put on a clinic in becoming just the second team to shut out Springfield (25-4), which had scored 119 goals and given up 25. The other squad to do it was Normal, which is playing in Saturday’s Class 3A final.
“We knew they scored a ton of goals and won 25 games,” Brooke said. “They played a lot of nice one- and two-touch passes, but we eliminated the time and space their central mids had.”
With the Warriors securing the midfield, Seager and his mates up front had room to create and they painted a pretty picture with several wonderful goals.
Seager, who has the school’s single-season scoring record, was particularly motivated to produce. He had been blanked in four previous games at the state finals, all of them losses.
The Warriors reached the semifinals in 2012 and 2013 but lost both games as well as the ensuing third place matches. They had also lost their only other semifinal match back in 2004, a Class A game under the old two-class system.
“[The hat trick] was great, especially having the privilege to play in two past years at state,” Seager said. “[I] was never able to score, so it felt good to put the ball in the net, and we had a lot of guys step up to make that happen.”
Seager scored the first three goals for the Warriors. The first two came six minutes apart in the first half, both on headers off set pieces.
The Warriors opened the scoring at the 27:09 mark when Jacob Kapitaniuk sent a free kick across midfield to senior defender Parker Setran on the right wing. Setran sent a long ball into the box toward Seager, who was near the edge of the six-yard box.
Springfield goalie Evan Wright hesitated for a split second before coming out and that was all Seager needed as he outjumped a defender and sent a backward header over Wright’s head.
“I got the ball, and I picked my head up,” Setran said. “I saw that Ty was in the box so I just tried to place it as close to the goal as I could to where Ty was, and he just made the run and finished it.”
Seager struck again with 21:42 remaining in the half. This time he ran from left to right in front of the Springfield net and leaped high in the air to nod Kapitaniuk’s corner kick under the crossbar for a 2-0 lead.
“The big thing our team talks about is just set pieces and that it can kind of change a game,” Seager said. “Especially with the crosses coming in it’s hard for a goalkeeper to decide whether to come out or stay in.
“We just played good balls in that were hard for the defense, and they ended up in the back of the net.”
The Warriors dominated the action in the first 40 minutes. They earned nine corner kicks and outshot the Senators 10-3.
Springfield did have a few chances, but Wheaton Academy goalie Drew Sezonov made two of his three saves, including a diving stop on an open 15-yard shot from Logan Willard at the 6:55 mark.
Willard came in having scored 37 goals but was held to just two shots by the Warriors, who registered their 16th shutout.
“I thought the first half we were down there and created some chances,” Springfield coach Pat Phillips said. “We just didn’t put anything on frame. We were one pass off, one step slow.”
Seager, in contrast, seemed a step ahead of everyone else as he earned Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match honors.
“He wants it,” Phillips said. “He attacks the ball. He’s big and strong, a powerful kid. He just flies to the ball.”
But Seager spent the final 11 minute of the half on the bench after receiving a yellow card. That left Brooke with an interesting decision on his hands at halftime: whether or not to sit Seager out in the second half and risk losing the lead or play him and risk another yellow card, which would result in a suspension for Saturday’s match.
Brooke opted to send Seager back into the fray to start the second half and Seager rewarded him with another goal and a 3-0 lead with 19:23 to go.
Senior midfielder Lucas Hoepner sent a pass up to Seager in the right side of the penalty area. Seager dribbled to the outside to shake a defender and then beat Wright with a sharply angled shot to the far post.
“Any time a yellow comes out it’s certainly on your mind,” Brooke said. “Once we got No. 3 we took him off the field, but Ty is such an athletic player but also very controlled.
“He doesn’t have a temper so we didn’t have any nerves putting him back on the field. He knows what he’s doing. We just wanted to be wise once we got No. 3.”
Even with Seager on the bench, the Warriors didn’t let up or miss a beat. Senior midfielder Patrick Kilgallon bagged his second goal of the season when he somehow sent a shot from a severe angle past Wright and inside the left post with 5:03 remaining. Senior Jha’Lon Johnson had the assist.
“I thought we came out and executed our system in a really good fashion,” Brooke said. “I don’t know if it’s the best we’ve played. We were great in the final third to get two corner goals like we did and then for Lucas to drop a ball on a dime like he did to Ty for No. 3 was just impressive on an individual level.
“Then for Kilgallon to drop the ball over the top into a window coming off the bench, keeping the level high, there’s a lot of positives.”
The most important one, of course, is that the Warriors earned their first shot at a state championship.
The school’s girls soccer team won state titles in 2004 and 2009.
“The girls have won it twice,” Brooke noted. “Their logo has two stars and ours has zero. The guys knew today was a moment where we could get to a level that no one had gone to.”
The prize on offer Saturday is especially meaningful to Wheaton Academy’s 13 seniors.
“It’s huge,” Seager said. “Obviously, we’ve been training for months and months to have this opportunity and we finally have it so, so we’re going to do everything we can to go out and get it.”
St. Joseph is 23-0-1 but has not played the caliber of opponents faced by the Warriors, who are brimming with confidence and determination.
“We came into this year and wanted to be a different team,” Hoepner said. “We wanted to have a different mindset as we work toward this goal of winning state.
“We put it all on the top of our lockers at the beginning of the year that we wanted to win this game and we wanted to win the next game. We accomplished [the first], and hopefully we’ll accomplish [the second] tomorrow.”
Starting lineups
Wheaton Academy
GK Drew Sezonov
D Michael Carver
D Andrew VanNispen
D Parker Setran
M Grant Rougas
M Jha’Lon Johnson
M Jacob Kapitaniuk
M Lucas Hoepner
F Luis Rocha
F Reid Culberson
F Ty Seager
Springfield
GK Evan Wright
D Jacob Gordy
D Carter Connolley
D Eri Heumann
D Colin Tierney
D Jack Sherrick
M Luke Reiser
M Kelby Phillips
M Evan Kuhn
F Nate Cheung
F Logan Willard
Man of the Match: Ty Seager, Wheaton Academy
Referees: Rich Goldberg (center), Gene Matlock, Thomas Schaefer, Jose Gonzales (fourth)