Wheaton Academy inches away from St. Francis

A couple of inches is all it took to get Wheaton Academy refocused.

Leading by a goal in the 58th minute of Tuesday's Class 2A St. Francis boys soccer regional semifinal, the Warriors breathed a sigh of relief after Spartans senior Jose Zepeda saw his toe-poke attempt to tie the game roll inches wide left of the Warriors' net.

"I think if that ball goes in it's a different story," Spartans coach Kevin Ward said. "I think it shakes things up a bunch. That's soccer. Six inches away from changing a lot."

"We probably would have handled that ball a little different if we could do it over," Wheaton Academy coach Jeff Brooke said of the turnover that led to the Spartans' scoring chance. "A lesson learned. The ball goes wide. We respond."

The Spartans' best chance to score behind them, the Warriors (19-1-1) regrouped, putting some distance between themselves and their archrivals with a 61st-minute goal from Lucas Hoepner and a 65th-minute score by sophomore Elias McCloud. Senior Grant Rougas assisted both by driving toward the goal line on the right side and feeding passes back and to the front of the Spartans' net.

The Warriors controlled the action throughout the match while the Spartans (9-9-4) defended with numbers and looked for opportunities to counterattack. Wheaton Academy outshot St. Francis 19-2 and had 9 corner kicks while the Spartans went without.

"We knew what we were up against," Ward said. "We actually did a pretty good job against them tonight for the most part."

"They sat in on us, and we weren't sure what they were going to do and they decided to do that. You could see it from the beginning," Brooke added. "They clogged a lot of space. But I told our guys I was proud of our commitment to possession but also that understanding that we need to get forward, we need to have a killer instinct in front of the goal."

Junior Ty Seager notched the first Wheaton Academy goal, scoring in the 12th minute off a Reid Culberson assist.

The Warriors will meet the winner of Wednesday's match between Glenbard South and Fenton in Friday night's regional final.

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