advertisement

Boys soccer: Rojas gets selfish, and Fenton loves it

Fenton senior midfielder Ethan Rojas acted a little selfishly.

His coach thought it was about time.

Rojas scored on a 32-yard rocket midway through the second half to give the Bison the lead for good in a 2-1 victory over host Glenbard South in a Class 2A regional semifinal Tuesday night in Glen Ellyn.

The goal was the second of the season - and the first game-winner - for Rojas, whose blast off a pass from Valentin Motta De Castro came just 27 seconds after the Raiders had gotten the equalizer when defender Brennan Rzewuski headed in a long throw-in from A.J. Biancalana.

"We've been preaching to him to take shots," Fenton coach Victor Ruiz said of Rojas. "All season long he had some opportunities, but instead of shooting he just keeps passing.

"If you don't shoot, you don't know what can happen. He took a shot and look what happened."

For Rojas, the goal with 18:38 remaining took some pressure off his shoulders and those of his teammates.

"To me it was really relieving because it took the stress off the team to put us up 2-1," Rojas said. "We still had a lot of time so we had to keep our heads."

The Bison (11-10-2) had to stay composed after Rzewuski's goal, which initially swung the momentum in favor of the Raiders. So when De Castro, who had given Fenton a 1-0 lead when he scored off an Ivan Jaramillo's feed with 29:09 to go, passed Rojas the ball, he kept his head up and saw an opening.

"During training I keep getting the ball and I keep getting the space and the opportunities to shoot," Rojas said. "And today I saw the opportunity, saw the space and was like, 'Why not?' I ripped it and it went in."

It was a great way to respond to some adversity.

"The mentality there (at 1-1) was we're still in the game," Rojas said. "We were up 1-0.

"Just because they score one (doesn't mean) we can't put another one in. We just had to suffer a bit as a team, pick our heads up and get back in the game."

Despite the strike from Rojas, the Raiders (10-8-3) were still in the game. They had five quality chances in the next nine minutes, but Fenton goalkeeper Daniel Villanueva made 3 of his 5 saves, a shot from Lance Evans hit the left post and a 25-yard drive from Biancalana whizzed over the top of the left post.

"If it wasn't for the result, I would say it's a great match," said Glenbard South coach Adam Szyszko, whose team tied Fenton 3-3 in the regular season. "But it was an entertaining game.

"Even when we went down 1-0, I was like, 'Hey, we've had opportunities, we did it against them before, we'll do it again.' We had plenty of opportunities at 2-1.

"Congratulations to Fenton. They played hard."

The Bison advance to Saturday's regional final to play top-seeded Benet (15-1-2), which beat St. Francis 4-0 in the other semifinal.

"Those are the big moments we want," said Ruiz, whose team reached the supersectional last season. "We want to be able to play against the big teams and see where we're at.

"This year our expectations were to get back to where we were last year, but with the understanding that we are young. They're working hard and doing a good job."

Article Comments
Guidelines: Keep it civil and on topic; no profanity, vulgarity, slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked. If a comment violates these standards or our terms of service, click the "flag" link in the lower-right corner of the comment box. To find our more, read our FAQ.