Boys soccer: St. Edward tops Aurora Central for 1A sectional crown
ROCKFORD - The frustration on AJ Franklin's face was clearly evident as top-seeded St. Edward trailed Aurora Central Catholic 1-0 at halftime in Saturday morning's Class 1A Rockford Christian boys soccer sectional championship match.
That quickly turned to elation as the 6-foot-3 standout senior forward netted two of the Green Wave's three goals during a frenetic opening nine minutes of the second half.
Utilizing their superior depth, St. Edward maintained possession for the majority of the final 30 minutes and held on for an emotional 3-2 victory over a determined Chargers' squad.
The Green Wave (25-1) hopes to avenge last season's 1-0 supersectional loss to Normal when they square off against Chicago's Francis W. Parker (11-8-3) Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Benedictine University.
"AJ was really frustrated at halftime, but I gave him a hug and told him, you are who you are and just go out there and do this," said St. Edward coach Tim Brieger. "Once he got that first one, it was like he got the monkey off his back."
"We knew we would have the wind in the second half. Coach predicted the score would be 3-1 us and he was almost right," said Franklin, as he tallied his 67th and 68th goals of the season, just 3 short of tying the reported state record set by Robert Meschback of Gordon Tech in 1976.
For the second straight game, St. Edward conceded the first goal early on. In the 6th minute, ACC's George Yanez played a long bouncing ball in over keeper Evan Sajtar to senior Brennan Hare, who calmly finished for his 20th goal of the season.
The lead held up until the opening minute of the second half when Franklin headed in a perfect flip throw in from junior Zach Olenek.
However, the Chargers (14-12-1) regained the lead 47 seconds later when Kyle Czerak headed in a long free kick from Nathan Sundberg.
"We wanted to follow our plan and that was to keep them on defense," said Chargers coach Jose Barrientos. "Our forwards can score against any defense line."
"After we scored, we got so amped up that when we got next dead ball, not one of our defenders ran with their marks and they got open and made a great finish," Brieger said.
The Green Wave knotted things up less than two minutes later as Olenek launched another long flip throw in that carried with the wind and trickled off the fingers of ACC keeper Dan Siebert into the back of the net.
"The wind just helped it and curved it right on in," Olenek said.
The game-winner came in the 49th minute as Franklin received Will Gaston's deft pass into the box and fired the ball into the left corner.
"Early in the second half we let down on defense and that was the difference in the game," Barrientos said. "In spite of the loss, I'm very satisfied with the way our kids performed. We competed with them, but they have more strength on the bench."
St. Edward's wave of quality subs wore down the Chargers, who went primarily with their starters.
"We started crushing down our right wing and left wing and I think they just ran out of gas," Brieger said. "Our depth was huge. We kept rotating three of our four midfielders nonstop."
"We've had pressure on us the last couple of games and we've learned from that," Olenek added. "We just have to keep pushing forward and the defense has to shape it up and make a wall they can't get through."
Despite a valiant effort, it was a bittersweet end for Hare and the Chargers' seven senior starters.
"At halftime we were convinced we could go on and win," Hare said. "It's definitely tough, but our goal was to go out win a regional title because this school hadn't won one in a long time. We're all our very proud of our accomplishments and I couldn't ask for anything more."