Wheaton Academy downs St. Francis
Wheaton Academy has had a winning touch against the St. Francis boys soccer team in recent years.
That trend continued during Tuesday evening’s Suburban Christian Conference match in West Chicago as the host Warriors prevailed 3-1.
“There’s always a stigma when it comes to playing Wheaton Academy,” Spartans coach Kristin Keigley said. “There’s always been a mental block when it comes to it, so we definitely saw an improvement there.”
Wheaton Academy (6-2-1, 3-0-0 SCC) only needed a few minutes to put the Spartans in a 1-0 hole as Brian McLean assisted on a Gareth Flynn goal.
“It was pretty much a breakaway on a counterattack,” McLean said. “I just looked ahead and saw Flynn take off. He composed himself, took on a couple guys and finished.”
Falling behind early was definitely not what the Spartans needed, especially with a 6-2 thumping to the Warriors last season still on their minds.
“It was a good game and I’m happy, and the kids are happy with how they battled,” Keigley said. “We controlled the second half and really did dictate play for the second half. We had so many opportunities but just couldn’t do it.”
St. Francis (4-3-1, 1-1-0 SCC) fell behind 2-0 with 25:43 remaining in the opening half when it allowed an own-goal.
The match remained that way for most of the second half. Finally, McLean lofted a perfect feed to Flynn again and the junior forward put it in the back of the net with 8:35 left in the contest to push the lead to 3-0.
St. Francis broke the shutout with a goal from Drew Mascari as time expired.
“I thought we created a number of breakaways beyond the three that we put in that could’ve stretched it,” Warriors coach Jeff Brooke said. “We’re trying to play a fast possession version of soccer that sometimes looks all right and sometimes doesn’t. I thought we lost our possession a bit but still created a ton of chances.”
Not all the news was good for the Warriors as they lost starting defender Adam Hunt to an injury. Brooke won’t know the magnitude of the injury until Wednesday but is worried Hunt may not be able to return in time for Thursday’s big test against St. Charles North.