Wheaton Academy claims seond Class 2A soccer championship
Wheaton Academy has a nice new trophy to put into its still empty new trophy case in almost-completed Heritage Field House.
With a 3-0 victory over Lemont Saturday afternoon in Naperville, the Warriors completed their sweep through the Class 2A field, claiming the school's second girls soccer state championship.
"That'll be great, that'll be great," Wheaton Academy coach Scott Marksberry said. "But for us, we didn't play for the trophy. We were writing a story this season, and that was kind of the emphasis for us. The whole second half of the season was all about the story that was being told through this team."
It's a story with a very happy ending for the Warriors.
"I am on an ultimate high right now," senior Jenn Lee said. "We just graduated, like, four hours ago, and just being able to accomplish this feat with the power of Christ in us is just unbelievable. I'm at a loss for words."
The story of this game was the Warriors three seniors: Becca Long, Leah Fortune and Lee. Long is the heartbeat of the team, according to Marksberry, and Lee and Fortune provided the goals Saturday, each of them off restarts.
Lee opened the scoring in the 20th minute after Fortune and Crystal Thomas played a short corner kick. Lemont goalkeeper Erin Stahurski stopped Fortune's shot, but Lee pounced on the rebound for the goal.
"I'm always supposed to stand in front of the keeper. Leah shot the ball and it came back out and I just poked it in," Lee said.
That's where the game stood at halftime.
"The first half was kind of a scare for us a little bit, only being up by one at half. We weren't used to that completely," Lee said. "But we just came out in the second half knowing we had to step it up."
"The first half we came out a little bit flat," Marksberry added. "We played flatter than we normally do."
The Warriors, many of them battling nagging injuries, came out with new energy in the second half and emphasized winning balls in the air. In the 51st minute a Christi Dithrich long free kick out of the back bounced into the Lemont penalty area, where Fortune corralled it and slotted it into the net.
"Dithrich played a ball in and I believed in it and it was out of the air and I just had to hit it. I was in the right place and just put it in the back of the net," Fortune said.
Lee capped the scoring in the 57th minute, diving away from the goal as Stahurski dove with her, then heading a Thomas corner kick into the net.
"I don't know where that came from," said a giddy Lee. "It hit my head, but I've never done a diving header in my life before. I want to watch what I did because I don't even know."
Lee and Fortune not only got help from their sisters on the field but their sisters in the stands. Ariel and Calah Fortune and Taryne Lee were on the Wheaton Academy team that won the 2004 Class A title, but they needed four overtimes to win it. Their kid sisters won each game during this state series by at least 3 goals.
"Before the past two games coach had some of the former 2004 players come into the locker room with us, and that was just the coolest thing ever for all of us to see these older girls who had matured since then and be able to give us their words of advice and wisdom, because we really took them to heart," Lee said. "We saw how much they were able to grow from the experience, and we wanted to follow their footsteps."