Romeoville stuns York
in OT to advance to 3A title game
Mesta’s header in 94th minute lifts Spartans to wild 4-3 win
By Chris R. Walker
HOFFMAN ESTATES -- The rain had stopped before York’s Class 3A state semifinal game against Romeoville on Friday evening, but the Dukes still found themselves drowning in uncharted waters.
While the Dukes were somehow able to fight their way back from a three-goal deficit at halftime while a man down to tie the game, they saw their undefeated season and bid to try to defend their state title come to a harsh ending in a 4-3 loss to the Spartans in double overtime.
Romeoville (28-1-1) advances to Saturday’s 8 p.m. championship game against Naperville Central, which beat Stevenson, the last remaining undefeated team, 5-0, in the other semifinal. Neither the Redhawks nor Spartans has won a state title, but that will change in less than 24 hours. The Redhawks beat the Spartans, 4-0, in mid-October for Romeoville’s only loss this season and ended their 13-game winning streak. York and Stevenson will face the difficult task of having to rebound and play for third place rather than a championship at 6 p.m.
“It’s a humbling experience to lose this way, but you can’t put your chin down after a game like this,” York coach Jordan Stopka said. “You put your chin straight up and realize ‘Oh my God, did we just do that and tie it up?'"
With the wind at its back, Romeoville started the scoring. Senior Ryan Budz opted to fire a shot from about 35 yards away rather than distribute the ball. His decision proved to be the right one as his excellent strike sailed just under the crossbar for a 1-0 lead with 16:39 remaining in the opening half.
“I got the ball from Demain (Martinez) and just took a shot because the defender was expecting me to pass it back,” Budz said. “I opened up the scoring there and after that there was so much momentum. We scored again and again, and it was 3-0 at halftime.”
York (20-1-3), which was ranked no. 2 in the final Chicagoland Soccer Top 25, nearly tied the game with 13:45 remaining in the first half, but for the second time in the action they saw their chances cut short by an offside call.
While those calls certainly didn’t help matters for the Dukes, it was a foul and ensuing soft red card to junior Mateusz Janowski that really punished the squad. That forced the Dukes to ultimately play 70 minutes of combined regulation and overtime while a man down.
“I’d like to go back in time and not have that red card: but you’ve got to play the hand that’s dealt to you and they responded,” Stopka said. “I’m unbelievably proud, so it’s a happy sad. Yeah, you lost, but you look back at how these boys responded, and it could’ve been so much different.”
Romeoville standout senior Joseph Duarte, the Southwest Prairie Conference Player of the Year, buried a 20-yard free kick with 10:08 to go in the first half to make the foul and red card hurt even more as Duarte’s eye-popping 42nd goal of the season made it 2-0.
“I think it was a three or two-pass sequence with my teammates. The ball was sent through so I took a touch, and he just took me out,” Duarte said. “From there it was too close to miss. I was feeling it, and I’ve scored free kicks before so I was going to do it. The net is big. I just had to do it. I had that in my mind that the only way to score a goal is knowing you’re going to score them.”
Who could’ve guessed that not even two minutes later the Spartans would increase their lead to 3-0? Christian Agyekum found some space and the Dukes gave him too much time to create an opportunity. From close proximity, the senior sent it home with 8:12 remaining before the break.
While the Spartans, who were ranked no. 8 in the final Chicagoland Soccer Top 25, were enjoying their offensive outburst, scoring three times in the final 17 minutes of the first half, they also received a huge defensive play from Imanol Casillas. The junior kept the Dukes off the scoreboard for the time being as Casillas cleared a shot off the line with goalkeeper Lucas Ortiz out of the net with about four minutes left.
“When the goals started going in and especially when you’re not used to being in that position, I don’t think we were down more than one goal the entire season, so once it’s 2-0 you think we’ve never been in this situation before,” Stopka said. “And once it’s 3-0 it’s ‘Oh, wow.’ On top of it we’re down a man. So basically we had to rein in the emotions, which we said at halftime.”
Riding a 31-game unbeaten streak, York found itself in a difficult spot. But the Dukes began to find their answers after Stopka addressed them at the break.
“I basically told them we have two options right now,” he said. “We can start screaming at each other and getting mad and start booting the ball and getting over the top and pray for whatever, or we get back to the way that we play. I’m beyond proud that the boys chose the latter and responded and just kept going and kept going.”
The Dukes jumped right back into the game in a big way after Gustavo Herrera’s booming 50-yard free kick was sent home by Alexander Menolascina in full stride with 30:47 left. Herrera was recognized as a Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match.
“As soon as I saw we were down 3-0, I kind of talked to everyone letting them know what happened last year in the semifinal when we were up 3-0 and Lockport starting coming back,” York senior Ryder Kohl said of the 3-2 win. “I brought that up, and we were using that as motivation when we went into halftime.
“And this wasn’t the first time this happened this year. We were down 2-1 against Lake Park and 2-1 against St. Charles East, but we don’t stop playing. Both goals (in the 2-2 ties) were headers in the last minute of the game. It just says a lot about our teammates, and the fight that they have. I’m just so proud to be a part of this team.”
With the strong wind at their its back and momentum now swinging in their favor, the Dukes pulled to within 3-2 after Jayden Waski tapped in a shot on a ball again from Herrera with 29:49 remaining for his 12th goal of the season.
“I give a lot of credit to my bench today,” Waski said. “The second we came off they were there for us, pushing us on and stuff like that, especially our coaches too, and my captain Jose (Herrera). They were a big factor with how I played today and kept pushing us on.”
That push would get the Dukes even with the Spartans with 23:18 left in regulation as Joe Hernandez beat a couple defenders before firing in his game-tying shot, his 11th goal of the season. Suddenly, it was a brand new ballgame.
“Our fans after that (first) goal went crazy, and they believed in us,” Gustavo Herrera said. “We got that second goal, and they kept cheering us on and kept cheering, So really it was our fans, but everyone played a piece in it: our coaches; the bench; the fans.
“We knew we were playing for each other and just kept pushing. To be down 3-0 is tough, but we knew we could come back if we really worked hard for it. We were there, but just sadly didn’t get there completely.”
Stopka acknowledged that the momentum was apparent but the Dukes also needed to make hay while the sun shines.
“It was tough for them to hear me, but I was screaming ‘Big mo! Big mo!’ because we kind of dropped off a bit when we made it 3-3,” he said. “I was like ‘No! Let’s just take care of it now and utilize the momentum and the fans.’ We said ‘Get one goal, your fans will get behind you, get two goals and (Romeoville) will start getting nervous, and get three and God knows what can happen.’ And they did.”
The threat of penalty kicks loomed as the teams were less dangerous with chances for the remainder of regulation and in the overtimes.
Stopka admitted that he and assistant coach Dave Alvarez were thinking that it was heading toward such a conclusion.
“Coach Alvarez and I both said we were convinced it was going to go to PKs, and we were going to take care of business,” Stopka said. “But credit Romeoville for finishing that header on that free kick.”
On the flip side, Romeoville coach Nick Cirrincione shared that Luis Orizaba told him that the Spartans would find a way to score in overtime and avoid decisive PKs.
“Luis kind of said it best when he came over and said ‘Hey, we ain’t going to penalty kicks,” Cirrincione said. “We’re going to score in OT. I said ‘Go for it.’”
Orizaba appeared to be the one who got on the other end of a simply gorgeous 22-yard free kick from Casillas, who was named co-Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match. It would’ve been Orizaba’s 12th goal of the season, and without doubt, the biggest of his high school playing days, but while he gave a great effort to get his head on the other end of it, it was Ruben Mesta who outbid him for the ball and buried the game-winner with 5:14 left in the second overtime.
“I peeled off my defender and (Mesta) ran in front of me,” Orizaba explained. “We both jumped for it. Ultimately he got more contact than me, and he scored. It was honestly probably one of the best feelings. We were stressing the whole second half so to finally break the tie and win it for the people in the stands felt great.”
It certainly had to feel a lot better than how it must’ve felt going from 3-nil to 3-3 in less than a half.
“They were a little faster in person than I was expecting with (Jayden Waski, Jose Herrera, Gustavo Herrera, Joe Hernandez), and (Ryder Kohl) tough in back,” Cirrincione said.
Romeoville played a half dozen more games than York did this fall. The extremely active game schedule that Cirrincione pieced together has the Spartans a win away from a ring.
“We’ve played the most games out of anybody here and that was done by design to get everyone in,” he said. “Our goal from day one was a state championship and undefeated. We lost that (on Oct. 13 to Naperville Central). We won the regional, won sectional, won supersectional, and that’s been the mindset since the first days of the season. That’s been the goal. It’s never shifted.”
Cirrincione had his guys running sprints in practice. The dry run was for the long, physically exhausting and mentally crushing do-or-die games like the state semifinal against the defending state champs.
“The buy-in to work hard has never changed,” the coach said. “We were doing sprints the other day. These guys thought I was crazy, and we’re doing sprints. Why? For when we go to overtime, double overtime. You’ve got to have that mindset and that’s why we run, why we put the time and effort in.”
Said Duarte: “From the beginning we wanted this state championship. From our first practice our goal was that state championship, that ring, and here we are. We’re fighting for it, and we’re going to keep fighting for it.”
The Spartans have already made school history as they continue to build a buzz around the school and Romeoville community. They’re the first team at the school to win a state trophy since the boys track and field team took third place in 2000.
“You look at the crowd and it doesn’t feel real. That’s the biggest crowd I’ve ever played in front of in my whole life,” Orizaba said. “It’s a surreal feeling. You don’t get that everyday. It feels great. When you’re going to school and everybody is talking about you, saying ‘Good job,” and hearing it in the hallways. Everyone is taking about the team and asking are you going to the game? We’ve changed something at Romeoville and a lot of people are showing love to the sport now.”
Stopka may have felt torn after seeing a courageous comeback from his kids on a chaotic night of this wonderful game of soccer, but ultimately he left full of love for his kids and their gigantic effort, fighting through adversity early after going a man down and then fighting until the end while running on fumes.
“The boys listened to the coaches at halftime and a lot of teams, even the good ones, when you go down a couple of goals, or maybe a goal late, you get away from your game and you start booting the ball and playing through-balls and playing for miracles,” he said. “We told the boys to play feet and to play off of each other, and they did.
“There were through-balls, but they were slotted through-balls and not 40-yard bombs that went over the back, and we just ran around them. They built the play up and sucked a defender out and played it behind them and finished, and that’s all you can really ask for. I wish there was a little bit more in the tank. It was probably an energy thing more than anything.”
Stopka may still be replaying the game in his head now.
“You want to be sad,” he said. “But there’s too much positive to take away from the second half and two overtimes and the bonds that you’ve built with these kids for three months this season and for some kids, two or three years.”
As we’ve heard countless times from Mick Jagger, “You can’t always get what you want…”
York wanted to become the first repeat champion since Naperville North won three straight in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
Romeoville wants a chance to avenge their lone loss of the season to Naperville Central. They’ll get it.
“We want to get revenge on them and get them back for giving us our lone loss,” Cirrincione said. “We’ve scored a lot of goals, got a lot of assists and got a lot of wins, but our job is not done. It’s the ring at the end of the day, and the guys realize whether it’s 80 minutes or 100 minutes away, it doesn’t matter. I think we’re ready to go.”
Starting lineups
Romeoville
GK: Lucas Ortiz
D: Imanol Casillas
D: Josh Silvar
D: Gavin Carrasco
D: Isaiah Pina
MF: Ryan Budz
MF: Christian Agyekum
MF: Demain Martinez
MF: Luis Orizaba
F: Joseph Duarte
F: Juan Jimenez
York
GK: Diego Ochoa
MF: Michael Greco
MF: Gustavo Herrera
MF: Frank Rofano
MF: Joe Hernandez
MF: Jayden Waski
D: Manteusz Janowski
D: Ryder Kohl
D: Soren Moore
D: Stefan Rebic
F: Jose Herrera
Chicagoland Soccer Men of the Match:
Imanol Casillas, jr., D, Romeoville;
Gustavo Herrera, jr., MF, York
Scoring summary
First half
R: Ryan Budz (unassisted), 23:21
R: Joseph Duarte (free kick), 29:53
R: Christian Agyekum (unassisted), 31:48
Second half
Y: Alexander Menolascina (Gustavo Herrera) 49:13
Y: Jayden Waski (Gustavo Herrera), 50:11
Y: Joe Hernandez (unassisted), 66:42
First overtime
No scoring
Second overtime
R: Ruben Mesta (Imanol Casillas), 94:46
in OT to advance to 3A title game
Mesta’s header in 94th minute lifts Spartans to wild 4-3 win
By Chris R. Walker
HOFFMAN ESTATES -- The rain had stopped before York’s Class 3A state semifinal game against Romeoville on Friday evening, but the Dukes still found themselves drowning in uncharted waters.
While the Dukes were somehow able to fight their way back from a three-goal deficit at halftime while a man down to tie the game, they saw their undefeated season and bid to try to defend their state title come to a harsh ending in a 4-3 loss to the Spartans in double overtime.
Romeoville (28-1-1) advances to Saturday’s 8 p.m. championship game against Naperville Central, which beat Stevenson, the last remaining undefeated team, 5-0, in the other semifinal. Neither the Redhawks nor Spartans has won a state title, but that will change in less than 24 hours. The Redhawks beat the Spartans, 4-0, in mid-October for Romeoville’s only loss this season and ended their 13-game winning streak. York and Stevenson will face the difficult task of having to rebound and play for third place rather than a championship at 6 p.m.
“It’s a humbling experience to lose this way, but you can’t put your chin down after a game like this,” York coach Jordan Stopka said. “You put your chin straight up and realize ‘Oh my God, did we just do that and tie it up?'"
With the wind at its back, Romeoville started the scoring. Senior Ryan Budz opted to fire a shot from about 35 yards away rather than distribute the ball. His decision proved to be the right one as his excellent strike sailed just under the crossbar for a 1-0 lead with 16:39 remaining in the opening half.
“I got the ball from Demain (Martinez) and just took a shot because the defender was expecting me to pass it back,” Budz said. “I opened up the scoring there and after that there was so much momentum. We scored again and again, and it was 3-0 at halftime.”
York (20-1-3), which was ranked no. 2 in the final Chicagoland Soccer Top 25, nearly tied the game with 13:45 remaining in the first half, but for the second time in the action they saw their chances cut short by an offside call.
While those calls certainly didn’t help matters for the Dukes, it was a foul and ensuing soft red card to junior Mateusz Janowski that really punished the squad. That forced the Dukes to ultimately play 70 minutes of combined regulation and overtime while a man down.
“I’d like to go back in time and not have that red card: but you’ve got to play the hand that’s dealt to you and they responded,” Stopka said. “I’m unbelievably proud, so it’s a happy sad. Yeah, you lost, but you look back at how these boys responded, and it could’ve been so much different.”
Romeoville standout senior Joseph Duarte, the Southwest Prairie Conference Player of the Year, buried a 20-yard free kick with 10:08 to go in the first half to make the foul and red card hurt even more as Duarte’s eye-popping 42nd goal of the season made it 2-0.
“I think it was a three or two-pass sequence with my teammates. The ball was sent through so I took a touch, and he just took me out,” Duarte said. “From there it was too close to miss. I was feeling it, and I’ve scored free kicks before so I was going to do it. The net is big. I just had to do it. I had that in my mind that the only way to score a goal is knowing you’re going to score them.”
Who could’ve guessed that not even two minutes later the Spartans would increase their lead to 3-0? Christian Agyekum found some space and the Dukes gave him too much time to create an opportunity. From close proximity, the senior sent it home with 8:12 remaining before the break.
While the Spartans, who were ranked no. 8 in the final Chicagoland Soccer Top 25, were enjoying their offensive outburst, scoring three times in the final 17 minutes of the first half, they also received a huge defensive play from Imanol Casillas. The junior kept the Dukes off the scoreboard for the time being as Casillas cleared a shot off the line with goalkeeper Lucas Ortiz out of the net with about four minutes left.
“When the goals started going in and especially when you’re not used to being in that position, I don’t think we were down more than one goal the entire season, so once it’s 2-0 you think we’ve never been in this situation before,” Stopka said. “And once it’s 3-0 it’s ‘Oh, wow.’ On top of it we’re down a man. So basically we had to rein in the emotions, which we said at halftime.”
Riding a 31-game unbeaten streak, York found itself in a difficult spot. But the Dukes began to find their answers after Stopka addressed them at the break.
“I basically told them we have two options right now,” he said. “We can start screaming at each other and getting mad and start booting the ball and getting over the top and pray for whatever, or we get back to the way that we play. I’m beyond proud that the boys chose the latter and responded and just kept going and kept going.”
The Dukes jumped right back into the game in a big way after Gustavo Herrera’s booming 50-yard free kick was sent home by Alexander Menolascina in full stride with 30:47 left. Herrera was recognized as a Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match.
“As soon as I saw we were down 3-0, I kind of talked to everyone letting them know what happened last year in the semifinal when we were up 3-0 and Lockport starting coming back,” York senior Ryder Kohl said of the 3-2 win. “I brought that up, and we were using that as motivation when we went into halftime.
“And this wasn’t the first time this happened this year. We were down 2-1 against Lake Park and 2-1 against St. Charles East, but we don’t stop playing. Both goals (in the 2-2 ties) were headers in the last minute of the game. It just says a lot about our teammates, and the fight that they have. I’m just so proud to be a part of this team.”
With the strong wind at their its back and momentum now swinging in their favor, the Dukes pulled to within 3-2 after Jayden Waski tapped in a shot on a ball again from Herrera with 29:49 remaining for his 12th goal of the season.
“I give a lot of credit to my bench today,” Waski said. “The second we came off they were there for us, pushing us on and stuff like that, especially our coaches too, and my captain Jose (Herrera). They were a big factor with how I played today and kept pushing us on.”
That push would get the Dukes even with the Spartans with 23:18 left in regulation as Joe Hernandez beat a couple defenders before firing in his game-tying shot, his 11th goal of the season. Suddenly, it was a brand new ballgame.
“Our fans after that (first) goal went crazy, and they believed in us,” Gustavo Herrera said. “We got that second goal, and they kept cheering us on and kept cheering, So really it was our fans, but everyone played a piece in it: our coaches; the bench; the fans.
“We knew we were playing for each other and just kept pushing. To be down 3-0 is tough, but we knew we could come back if we really worked hard for it. We were there, but just sadly didn’t get there completely.”
Stopka acknowledged that the momentum was apparent but the Dukes also needed to make hay while the sun shines.
“It was tough for them to hear me, but I was screaming ‘Big mo! Big mo!’ because we kind of dropped off a bit when we made it 3-3,” he said. “I was like ‘No! Let’s just take care of it now and utilize the momentum and the fans.’ We said ‘Get one goal, your fans will get behind you, get two goals and (Romeoville) will start getting nervous, and get three and God knows what can happen.’ And they did.”
The threat of penalty kicks loomed as the teams were less dangerous with chances for the remainder of regulation and in the overtimes.
Stopka admitted that he and assistant coach Dave Alvarez were thinking that it was heading toward such a conclusion.
“Coach Alvarez and I both said we were convinced it was going to go to PKs, and we were going to take care of business,” Stopka said. “But credit Romeoville for finishing that header on that free kick.”
On the flip side, Romeoville coach Nick Cirrincione shared that Luis Orizaba told him that the Spartans would find a way to score in overtime and avoid decisive PKs.
“Luis kind of said it best when he came over and said ‘Hey, we ain’t going to penalty kicks,” Cirrincione said. “We’re going to score in OT. I said ‘Go for it.’”
Orizaba appeared to be the one who got on the other end of a simply gorgeous 22-yard free kick from Casillas, who was named co-Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match. It would’ve been Orizaba’s 12th goal of the season, and without doubt, the biggest of his high school playing days, but while he gave a great effort to get his head on the other end of it, it was Ruben Mesta who outbid him for the ball and buried the game-winner with 5:14 left in the second overtime.
“I peeled off my defender and (Mesta) ran in front of me,” Orizaba explained. “We both jumped for it. Ultimately he got more contact than me, and he scored. It was honestly probably one of the best feelings. We were stressing the whole second half so to finally break the tie and win it for the people in the stands felt great.”
It certainly had to feel a lot better than how it must’ve felt going from 3-nil to 3-3 in less than a half.
“They were a little faster in person than I was expecting with (Jayden Waski, Jose Herrera, Gustavo Herrera, Joe Hernandez), and (Ryder Kohl) tough in back,” Cirrincione said.
Romeoville played a half dozen more games than York did this fall. The extremely active game schedule that Cirrincione pieced together has the Spartans a win away from a ring.
“We’ve played the most games out of anybody here and that was done by design to get everyone in,” he said. “Our goal from day one was a state championship and undefeated. We lost that (on Oct. 13 to Naperville Central). We won the regional, won sectional, won supersectional, and that’s been the mindset since the first days of the season. That’s been the goal. It’s never shifted.”
Cirrincione had his guys running sprints in practice. The dry run was for the long, physically exhausting and mentally crushing do-or-die games like the state semifinal against the defending state champs.
“The buy-in to work hard has never changed,” the coach said. “We were doing sprints the other day. These guys thought I was crazy, and we’re doing sprints. Why? For when we go to overtime, double overtime. You’ve got to have that mindset and that’s why we run, why we put the time and effort in.”
Said Duarte: “From the beginning we wanted this state championship. From our first practice our goal was that state championship, that ring, and here we are. We’re fighting for it, and we’re going to keep fighting for it.”
The Spartans have already made school history as they continue to build a buzz around the school and Romeoville community. They’re the first team at the school to win a state trophy since the boys track and field team took third place in 2000.
“You look at the crowd and it doesn’t feel real. That’s the biggest crowd I’ve ever played in front of in my whole life,” Orizaba said. “It’s a surreal feeling. You don’t get that everyday. It feels great. When you’re going to school and everybody is talking about you, saying ‘Good job,” and hearing it in the hallways. Everyone is taking about the team and asking are you going to the game? We’ve changed something at Romeoville and a lot of people are showing love to the sport now.”
Stopka may have felt torn after seeing a courageous comeback from his kids on a chaotic night of this wonderful game of soccer, but ultimately he left full of love for his kids and their gigantic effort, fighting through adversity early after going a man down and then fighting until the end while running on fumes.
“The boys listened to the coaches at halftime and a lot of teams, even the good ones, when you go down a couple of goals, or maybe a goal late, you get away from your game and you start booting the ball and playing through-balls and playing for miracles,” he said. “We told the boys to play feet and to play off of each other, and they did.
“There were through-balls, but they were slotted through-balls and not 40-yard bombs that went over the back, and we just ran around them. They built the play up and sucked a defender out and played it behind them and finished, and that’s all you can really ask for. I wish there was a little bit more in the tank. It was probably an energy thing more than anything.”
Stopka may still be replaying the game in his head now.
“You want to be sad,” he said. “But there’s too much positive to take away from the second half and two overtimes and the bonds that you’ve built with these kids for three months this season and for some kids, two or three years.”
As we’ve heard countless times from Mick Jagger, “You can’t always get what you want…”
York wanted to become the first repeat champion since Naperville North won three straight in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
Romeoville wants a chance to avenge their lone loss of the season to Naperville Central. They’ll get it.
“We want to get revenge on them and get them back for giving us our lone loss,” Cirrincione said. “We’ve scored a lot of goals, got a lot of assists and got a lot of wins, but our job is not done. It’s the ring at the end of the day, and the guys realize whether it’s 80 minutes or 100 minutes away, it doesn’t matter. I think we’re ready to go.”
Starting lineups
Romeoville
GK: Lucas Ortiz
D: Imanol Casillas
D: Josh Silvar
D: Gavin Carrasco
D: Isaiah Pina
MF: Ryan Budz
MF: Christian Agyekum
MF: Demain Martinez
MF: Luis Orizaba
F: Joseph Duarte
F: Juan Jimenez
York
GK: Diego Ochoa
MF: Michael Greco
MF: Gustavo Herrera
MF: Frank Rofano
MF: Joe Hernandez
MF: Jayden Waski
D: Manteusz Janowski
D: Ryder Kohl
D: Soren Moore
D: Stefan Rebic
F: Jose Herrera
Chicagoland Soccer Men of the Match:
Imanol Casillas, jr., D, Romeoville;
Gustavo Herrera, jr., MF, York
Scoring summary
First half
R: Ryan Budz (unassisted), 23:21
R: Joseph Duarte (free kick), 29:53
R: Christian Agyekum (unassisted), 31:48
Second half
Y: Alexander Menolascina (Gustavo Herrera) 49:13
Y: Jayden Waski (Gustavo Herrera), 50:11
Y: Joe Hernandez (unassisted), 66:42
First overtime
No scoring
Second overtime
R: Ruben Mesta (Imanol Casillas), 94:46