Boys soccer: Fenton ends St. Edward's bid for a perfect season

A.J. Franklin and the St. Edward boys soccer team wanted nothing more than to finish the regular season off unbeaten, especially with the Class 1A playoffs starting next week.

"It would've been cool if we won today, go to state, it'd be cool if we were to be undefeated and win state," Franklin said.

Angel Barriga and Fenton had other intentions.

"We knew that we wanted to ruin their record," Barriga said. "We didn't want them to go off with a perfect season."

Barriga's offensive exploits spoiled the Green Wave's hopes at perfection. The senior forward had 2 goals and an assist as the Bison rolled to a 5-1 win in a Metro Suburban Conference crossover game.

"They want to go undefeated, and we (had) to play the spoiler here," Fenton coach Victor Ruiz said. "We've been playing like did today (all year). That's how we normally play the whole entire season."

The Bison (14-5) style of play caused fits for the Green Wave. Fenton constantly pressured the player on the ball, forcing mistakes, which led to quick breakaways and offensive attacks.

Five minutes before halftime, the Bison were rewarded for the offensive attacks.

Conrad Mocej collected the ball inside the 18-yard box, fired a shot that was blocked by St. Edward (21-1) and the rebound fell kindly to Barriga, who slipped the ball into the left side of the net, giving Fenton a 1-0 lead.

"We wanted to get on the scoreboard first, it's always important," Barriga said. "We knew that if we scored the first goal, we wouldn't stop scoring from there."

Only the halftime whistle could contain the Bison. Just 2:30 into the second half, Barriga collected the ball in the middle of the field and slipped a pass through on the right side of the 18-yard box to Darwin Medina, who scored to give Fenton a 2-0 lead.

"We went in and played our game (in the second half)," sophomore defender Sebastian Palacios said.

That was placing shots - and lots of them - on the St. Edward goal. Fenton had 19 shots, 13 of them on frame, in the game.

"We ran into an incredible team, playing great soccer, (who has) an amazing player in Angel, and we kind of had our roughest game," St. Edward coach Tim Brieger said. "I just told the guys maybe losing will play more dividends than anything else, because now we can see where we're making our mistakes. We can learn more from a loss than a win."

In the 51st minute Mocej played a long pass to Moises Noyola down the left wing, Noyola crossed it in and Branny Salas headed it home to give the Bison a 3-0 lead.

Seven minutes later, Matthew Plizaga played in a hanging ball on a free kick that Fernando Arias headed home for a 4-0 lead.

Fenton added its fifth 10 minutes later, when Barriga dribbled through a pair of Green Wave defenders and scored from 18 yards out.

Franklin snatched one back in the 75th minute, when he was slipped through on the right wing and scored.

Despite the setback Franklin and the Green Wave still feel confident heading into postseason play.

"I feel this was good for us," Franklin said. "We got a loss, we know how it feels. I feel like we do know how to play when we're losing because we can come back. That's good."

And the Bison get a little confidence boost from handing St. Edward that first loss.

"We talked about it, how they were undefeated," Palacios said. "We did anything we could to put them away."