Marmion ousts Kaneland
Mick Maley seemingly stunned everyone in DeKalb’s new stadium.
Most importantly for Maley and Marmion, that included Kaneland goalkeeper Marshall Farthing, who hardly moved when Maley laced a shot with 11:31 remaining in the first half into the net to give the Cadets a 1-0 lead.
It was all the scoring the Cadets would need as they beat Kaneland, 1-0, in Saturday night’s Class 2A DeKalb regional championship.
“A guy was in front of me and I got around him,” Maley said. “I took a touch from my foot and going across the box from the corner I just let it rip. I saw the goalie was kind of shading near post so I hit it near the back post and as soon as I hit it I knew it was in.”
It’s a goal and a win Maley won’t forget.
“Anything I can do to help the team win is satisfying,” he said. “To get a goal and have a score be 1-0 and play the way that we did. The goal is only a small individual prize for our team goal and that’s the thing.”
Marmion (16-6-3) advances to the Class 2A Freeport sectional where it will face East Moline at 5 p.m. Tuesday.
“This was a tremendous team effort on our part tonight and I thought we played very hard and very well,” Marmion coach Kevin O’Connor said. “We really lost a lot when (Matt) Switzer had an injury and that’s where as a team we just it put it together.”
O’Connor especially praised the leadership and play of Maley, Mike Frasca and Alex Ruble.
“When Switzer went out, because he’s such a key player for possession and our midfield game, we put this game on these guys,” he said. “But we got contributions from everybody. Everyone played guts out and to me this was a real team victory.”
Kaneland (12-7-1) kept the pressure on the Cadets by remaining within striking distance all night. While Maley scored the lone goal of the contest late in the first half, he also missed a penalty kick with 26:16 left in the game which could’ve put the match out of reach for the Knights.
‘It was huge. It kept us in and obviously, if they score that goal we’re probably done,” Kaneland coach Scott Parillo said. “But we tried pushing some people up and thought maybe we’d get a chance to put one in and tie it up. We’re used to going into OT after nine times last year.”
Overtime would never come for the Knights though as they never would answer with the equalizer.
“We played well, but they were just more aggressive,” Parillo said. “They possessed the ball better and we don’t run into that a lot. We usually out-possess most of the teams and this time we got out-possessed.”
After taking the small lead into halftime, the Cadets knew they had to maintain the lead.
“We’ve been in that position before earlier this year against Plainfield South and West Chicago where we let leads slip because we just kicked and ran,” Ruble said. “We knew we had to possess and that was our goal at halftime. We overmatched them in the end.”