Boys soccer: Bartlett topples Wheaton Academy for 1st sectional title
Bartlett's magical season will live on in November.
The Hawks survived Wheaton Academy, 2-1, during Saturday night's Class 3A Wheaton Academy boys soccer sectional championship match as they won a thrilling shootout, 9-8, to advance to Tuesday's 4:30 p.m. Barrington supersectional against McHenry.
It was the first sectional title in Bartlett history.
"Oh does it feel good," said Bartlett coach Vince DiNuzzo, a graduate of the school and former Hawks player. "Words can't describe the feeling I have for the boys. They worked so hard for this."
Bartlett (16-7-2) has become the feel-good story of Illinois high school soccer after going just 6-14-0 last year. Beating the Class 2A defending state champs, who moved to Class 3A this fall, is the Hawks' latest chapter, but they have more to add for their 16 seniors.
"This group of seniors planned on coming into the season and going to state," Hawks senior Tim Riordan said. "We haven't accomplished it yet. We know this is a big win, but we'll have to get ready for Tuesday."
Bartlett took a 1-0 lead thanks to Riordan's goal with 22:25 remaining in the first half. The Warriors simply gave Riordan too much time as he dribbled outside of the right side of the penalty box before firing a shot just inside the near post.
The Hawks really could've put the Warriors in a hole with 8:18 left in the opening half, but Wheaton Academy sophomore keeper JD Gunn, made a diving save on Oliver Saile's penalty kick.
Wheaton Academy (19-4-1) knotted the game at 1-1 with 3:47 remaining in the half on Jacob Kapitaniuk's corner kick, which was ultimately headed by Timmy Steininger.
"I thought they got that first goal against the run of play and then the game kind of settled in," Warriors coach Jeff Brooke said. "Then we got ours and it was a good back and forth battle until we went 10 rounds of PKs, and that's a lot. We made 8 and lost, that's tough."
Each team made its first 3 PKs during the shootout, but their fourth shooters both missed respectively, before Wheaton Academy's Ty Seager and Bartlett's Igor Zwada converted theirs to force a second shootout.
After both teams made their first 4 PKs in the extended shootout, the Warriors missed their fifth attempt, setting up Hawks' junior Daniel Colin.
"There was a lot going through my mind," Colin said. "I thought, 'What if I miss this?' I just had to black everything out and do what I can do."
He converted and now Bartlett's 16 seniors are only a game away from their goal - getting to state.
"I told them at the beginning of the season that the best feeling in the world is playing when it's cold out in high school," DiNuzzo said. "I told them you'll understand when you get there and they're understanding it now."
Justifiably, it was a difficult ending for Wheaton Academy, especially its four-year seniors, who posted an 87-17-3 record since 2012.
"This might be our most successful class to go through four years," Brooke said. "We wanted to represent our school well even though we were in 3A, and I thought we did. The 3A postseason is a grind. I thought we played great on Wednesday and OK tonight and OK bumped us."