All-St. Charles finale set

Chris Wallace, a junior on St. Charles East's boys soccer team, was riding high.

At the 19:37 mark in the first half, Wallace scored the first goal of the Saints' Class AA regional semifinal game against York at St. Charles East.

With less than two minutes left in the half, however, Wallace was questionably red carded and was taken out of the game.

The momentum was in York's favor, but the Saints never let it get to them for the rest of the game, as they topped the Dukes 1-0 Wednesday.

"(The goal) was nice, it was a great play," said Wallace, whose goal was assisted by Jeff Jones. "I got open and put it where it belongs."

"Chris' goal was a huge confidence builder for us," St. Charles East coach Jorge Ortiz said. "It gave us the momentum and maybe brought (York) down just a tad."

With the win, the No. 7 seeded Saints advanced to the regional final Friday against No. 2 seed St. Charles North. The North Stars advanced after beating No. 16 Addison Trail 5-0.

The Saints (9-10-3) and North Stars played earlier this season and drew a 0-0 tie.

"Even though I can't play (because of a red card), it will be fun to watch," Wallace said. "We played them well earlier in the season. The cross-town rivalry is going to build up. Everyone is going to be pumped."

"It's going to be an intense battle," Ortiz added. "No one is going home with a tie. There has to be a winner."

No. 10 seed York, which had several opportunities to score in the second half, capped its season 7-12-3.

"(The Saints) are a very good team, but I thought we deserved to win," York coach Markus Roy said. "The scoreboard doesn't show it.

"We started off the season slow…but we played much better toward the end of the season, so we are happy about that."

St. Charles North 5, Addison Trail 0:ŒThe North Stars wasted no time putting the ball in the net against the Blazers.

St. Charles North scored 3 times in the first 12 minutes in its easy win in the first game of the regional semifinal.

"Obviously, that was big," St. Charles North coach Eric Willson said. "I think it was the intensity we came out with in the first 15 minutes -- I thought that was important. The fact that we got those goals was obviously just as important, so it was big-time for the guys. They played really well."

"We wanted to come out," added Austin Andrekus, who scored the first goal for the North Stars at the 32-minute mark. "We really didn't know much about them, but we wanted to come out with a lot of intensity. We wanted to come out and score early."

A little over two minutes after Andrekus scored, Vladimir Schlageter did the same off a pass from Dominic Catalano.

Two minutes later, Kyle Joss was the North Star of the moment with his goal from Mike Picinich. That capped the scoring for the first half.

Ten minutes into the second half, Jon Schroeder scored from another assist from Picinich. Christian Foote tallied the last goal for the North Stars with 21:31 left in the game.

The North Stars are going for their fourth consecutive regional title.