Timothy Christian wins state championship

NORMAL - Having gotten a feel for the Class 1A boys soccer championship game last year, Timothy Christian wanted to do more than just visit this year.

The dream became reality for the Trojans with a 3-goal outburst in less than two minutes in the second half.

Timothy Christian carried the state championship trophy out of the Corn Crib with it after a 4-1 victory over Anna-Jonesboro-Cobden on Saturday night.

"The team is a team winner," said Trojans senior Mitch Evenhouse. "We knew that we wanted this from Day 1. We've been training from 6 a.m. back in tryouts and wanted this. We trained super-hard for this. We wanted to come back and we had a chip on our shoulder from last year. This is what we wanted and got it."

The Trojans (19-4) found themselves in a 1-1 battle with the downstate Wildcats (20-6-1) until the hour mark.

When Timothy Christian's Joshua Anderson connected on a shot that went off the hands of goalkeeper Jake Parr. But on the spot was Jimmy Allen to get a foot on it for a rebound, a 2-1 lead and his 35th goal of the season.

"I just saw the rebound and reacted on it," Allen said. "Joshua had a great shot, the goalie dove to his left and I was reading that. He did all the work, all I had to do, was to get it in the back of the net. It was huge to get it and it gave us momentum to keep going."

Less than a minute later, the Trojans' Trevor Hoogendoorn scored with a deflection off an Anderson corner kick for a 3-1 advantage.

Then Michael Martens added another with an impressive left-footed strike into the corner for the 3-goal margin in the 61st minute.

Timothy Christian's Ben Lodewyk opened the scoring in the 14th minute with a header off a free kick from Martens.

However, the Wildcats evened the game at 1-1 two minutes later when Zach Parr scored his 47th goal of the season on a loose ball in front of the goal.

Trojans goalkeeper Noah Marrera had 11 saves.

"I never imagined to see three goals in a couple of minutes," Timothy Christian coach Stephen Fernandes said. "The first 10 minutes of the game, it looked like we had all the momentum. They buried that one, then the game got so tight. I didn't imagine for us to score those three goals."