Wheaton Academy stuns St. Francis in final minute
From her forward position St. Francis senior Sydney Fox watched in horror as Wheaton Academy’s Crystal Thomas collected the soccer ball near midfield in the final minute of a tied game.
“I was just like, no! I was like, no!” said Fox, who thought this was her chance to finally defeat the Spartans’ archrivals for the first time. “This is not happening. I was doing everything in my mind to stop that ball, but it wasn’t enough.”
Meanwhile, Fox’s teammates were doing all they could to stop Thomas any way they could, and that wasn’t enough either. Thomas dribbled about 40 yards, stayed on her feet despite being fouled twice as the referee let play continue, found herself about 23 yards in front of the St. Francis goal and let loose a shot. When the ball came to rest in the back of the Spartans’ net, the scoreboard clock showed just 27.6 seconds to play.
Wheaton Academy won the Suburban Christian Conference game 2-1 despite being outshot 24-5. St. Francis was crestfallen, Wheaton Academy ecstatic.
“I’m kind of speechless,” St. Francis coach Jim Winslow said after his team dominated the game and still lost. “I mean, what do you say? In the first half we made them chase us all over. All over.”
Until the final minute it had been a quiet game for the Notre Dame-bound midfielder.
“No, I didn’t do much,” she said, claiming some divine intervention for the Warriors in her 22nd goal of the season. “I knew that my chance would come. My teammates worked hard and grinded this game out. That’s really why we won the game.”
“Special players do special things,” Wheaton Academy coach Dave Underwood said. “She has that ability. And we’ve been riding her ability to do that kind of thing all season long. She’s pretty incredible.”
Thomas was determined not to accept a St. Francis foul in that situation.
“She had me, but I was like, no,” Thomas said. “No, there are 30 seconds left and we are not going into overtime.”
“I’ve coached long enough to know that you can dominate games and lose 1-0, and that’s what happened tonight, and tonight was 2-1,” said Winslow, who coaches Thomas in the Olympic Development Program. “I give our kids all the credit in the world for banging on the door, banging on the door. We finally get the ball in on a corner.”
Thomas won the game with her goal, but goalkeeper Kristin Morency kept the Warriors in it. Morency made 11 saves and prevented many more shots with her aggressive play in the penalty area.
“My goalkeeper is the best goalkeeper in the state, and she is amazing,” Thomas said.
“She was phenomenal,” Underwood added. “Without ‘K-Mo’ and her effort tonight, being as good as she was, we’re not even in this game.”
Morency also got some help from the woodwork. The Spartans (15-3, 7-1) hit the crossbar twice and the right post once.
The Warriors (10-7-1, 8-0) scored the game’s first goal just seconds before halftime on a play Morency started when she came out of the box to knock away the ball from a Spartans attacker, then started a Warriors counterattack that Thomas continued with a long pass ahead to Ally Witt. Witt beat two defenders before scoring.
The Spartans finally broke through in the 69th minute, Anna Vonderhaar when she bodied in a Taylor Bucaro corner kick.
The teams could meet again in the Class 2A Elmwood Park sectional, where the Spartans are the top seed and the Warriors are No. 3. The Spartans can’t wait for the rematch.
“Oh, it’s on,” Fox said.