Boys soccer: Jacobs, Elgin will meet for regional title

If the Class 3A Jacobs boys soccer regional was a doozy on paper, then the doubleheader Tuesday in Algonquin was the icing on the cake.

And leave it to the host Golden Eagles to get the party started.

In grand fashion, No. 2 seed Jacobs (16-5) withstood two late deficits, only to see Chris Rigby bury the game-winning penalty kick for a 3-0 advantage in kicks to down No. 6 Streamwood, which had two possible chances to end things before the game reached penalty kicks, 3-2.

The win sent Jacobs to Saturday's 7 p.m. regional final against No. 5 Elgin (16-7-2), which downed No. 3 Dundee-Crown (12-5-4) 2-0 in an upset during the regional nightcap.

But Jacobs couldn't have gotten to the final without the heroics of Konrad Wasilewski and Noah Melick.

Wasilewski buried a 35-yard strike from the left of the box that sneaked inside the far post with 10:14 left in the second half. Melick, who left with 6 minutes left in regulation after an elbow drew a bloody nose, came back with a different jersey number in overtime only to score the game-tying goal with 6 minutes left in the second session when the ball got away from Streamwood's goalie near the top of the box, allowing Melick to tap it through.

"I was confident with my team, our team was composed well and I was fired up," Melick said. "I wanted to do something good and I finished that ball right there."

In one of the stranger penalty kicks, 3 shots were redone due to violations. Streamwood went 0-for-3 on its first 3 kicks and didn't get to shoot anymore after Colin Walsh and Wasilewski sank their shots, with Rigby sealing the deal. Rigby's first shot was stopped initially by a diving Sabres keeper Daniel Dominguez. But thanks to a do-over, Rigby's hard-rocket gave Jacobs an improbable win.

"After you take the first one, you do what you always do," Rigby said. "Once you've figured it out - and I got a redo - it's all mind games there. You've got to make sure he guesses the wrong way and I picked the same exact side I had been doing all season and put it away."

The loss for Streamwood (10-7-4) was bitter in the fact that not only were the Sabres not used to an early exit unlike last year's run to fourth place at state, but twice the Sabres had opportunities to close out and couldn't. Aldo Lazaro's first-half goal from Edwin Rueda and Erie Ortiz's goal off a Rueda corner should have been enough, but on a night where Jacobs had a 21-12 shot advantage, sometimes it goes that way.

"It just seems like that's been our season where we get the lead and then for some reason we can't finish the game out," Streamwood coach Matt Polovin said. "Jacobs kept on pressuring us, trying to get that tying goal and we should have just finished them off. At this point in the season you can't make a mistake and we did."

But make no mistake about it, Elgin is in a regional final. And despite 36 goals from Jonathan Ramirez on the season, not one was scored by the flashy, speedy forward in the win over Dundee-Crown.

Ramirez had his chances, but it was 3-year varsity forward Daniel Geary who lifted Elgin to Saturday's championship, as his goal with 1:38 left in the first half was all the Maroons needed to get revenge on the Chargers, who downed Elgin 3-2 earlier in the season. Cesar Gomez added a PK in the 55th minute for insurance, but coach David Borg's loud "yeah!" at the final buzzer summed it all up for the Maroons.

"This is what we're here to do, we're here to win soccer games," Borg said. "At the varsity level, that's what we're expected to do. It was a tough one because they beat us earlier in the season and I thought we were able to play them in that game and we gave that game up and we needed to come out here and set the pace early, control the tempo."

Elgin held a 16-11 shot advantage, but 2 shots on goal came from Ramirez. Geary had only 2 shots as well, but a pass from Pedro Hernandez gave Geary all Elgin needed.

"I saw it and took it," Geary said. "I think we played more as a team this game. I feel like we're a really good team now; we could go anywhere."

It ended a Fox Valley Conference Valley Division championship-tie season for Dundee-Crown, which exited in the semifinal for the third-straight year.

"I thought we made a couple mistakes and they got that first goal," Chargers coach Rey Vargas said. "We didn't panic, I thought we were doing a good job, I thought we were pressure. I thought in the second half we came out, I thought we did a great job of pressuring them, but it wasn't falling tonight."