Boys soccer: St. Edward handles Aurora Central

It was an offensive explosion for the St. Edward boys soccer team Thursday afternoon in Aurora, and Alex Semler was the central ringleader for the Green Wave.

The midfielder was a facilitator extraordinaire for the Green Wave despite not scoring.

But the senior had assists on half of the Wave goals in its 6-3 Metro Suburban Conference match against Aurora Central Catholic.

"My primary focus is to lay it off to my team," Semler said. "I'm more of an assist (guy) than a goal-scorer. We didn't anticipate a high-scoring match, but we did anticipate an even match."

St. Edward scored in bunches to earn its third win of the season.

Aurora Central midfielder Brett Czerak scorer his second goal of the game on a header a few minutes into the second half to negate a 2-1 St. Edward halftime lead.

Both sides would have quality chances over the next several minutes, but Semler fed Will Gaston a perfect cross off a corner kick.

The sophomore put the Wave ahead for good with his header.

Ninety-plus seconds later, the Wave doubled its advantage as Alec Uscila had an empty-net goal after Gaston had his rocket from close range ricochet to him off the right post.

"We did not play well on defense," Aurora Central coach Juan Barrientos said. "We allowed 3 or 4 goals from mistakes."

ACC (4-5-1, 1-2) had its hopes revitalized when George Yanez found the back of the Wave net with a blistering shot to narrow the Chargers' deficit to 4-3 with 14 minutes to play.

But St. Edward (3-5-4, 1-1) received insurance goals from AJ Franklin and Uriel Carachure less than five minutes apart to account for the final score.

"It's a lot of opportunities to score," Franklin said. "(The chances) gave us a lot of self-confidence. I just tried to do my best, remain calm and put it in the back of the net."

"It took us about three-fourths of the game to get adjusted to the field," Wave coach Tim Brieger said. "Alex took (the halftime discussion) to heart. He started finding space. I am very pleased to get the win. We set up our schedule to get ready for the state tournament."

Franklin opened the scoring less than three minutes into the contest with short conversion from the left side.

The Chargers' Czerak had the equalizer on a collaboration with his brother Kyle.

But Wave siblings Christopher and Alec Semler returned the favor moments later to accentuate the high-scoring affair.

"We were sloppy on the defensive end," Barrientos said. "We got beat to the ball today. That was the summary of the game."