St. Edward opens regional play with win

For the St. Edward boys soccer team, the postseason philosophy was simple. Score early and score often.

The Green Wave executed that plan as they hosted Elgin Academy Wednesday in opening round action of the Class 1A Westminster Christian regional and advanced with a 7-2 win over the Hilltoppers. The Wave will play Harvard Saturday at 11 a.m.

Ian Koller put the plan into action for St. Edward just six minutes into the game scoring off a feed from Luke McCullagh. With 18:14 remaining in the half, Clayton Pfeiffer dribbled down the sideline and fired a perfect cross to Kevin Dodgen who nailed a shot into the back of the net. For Pfeiffer, it was the first of 5 assists.

"I had a lot of space in the middle which allowed me clean looks throughout," said Pfeiffer. "We kept them spread out."

Before the break, David Smith made it a 3-0 game taking advantage of a long kick from St. Edward goalkeeper Jim Cholewa (3 saves).

The Hilltoppers (3-11) squeaked in a first half knock of their own to cut the lead to 3-1 when Johnathan Busano found himself in front of the Wave net and tapped a shot past Cholewa with 3 minutes left to play.

The St. Edward offense continued its push and a pair of goals in a 4-minute span put the game out of reach. Pfeiffer found Smith and McCullagh for back-to-back goals, and a 5-1 lead before the 60th minute. Following an EA penalty kick from Adam Neuman which made it 5-2, Pfeiffer found McCullagh, Lucas Belcher and Cholewa for addition Green Wave goals and the 7-2 win.

Tom Tunca made a dozen saves in goal for the Hilltoppers.

"Tom has been excellent all season," said coach Aurelio Castillo. "I liked the way our guys played. They came out and fought hard."