Boys soccer: West Chicago continues big year, knocks out St. Charles North
West Chicago's boys soccer team could be on the verge of something big.
Senior midfielder Moises Morfin scored a pair of goals and junior keeper David Kuehn recorded 12 saves as the top-seeded Wildcats (20-2-3) defeated 13th-seeded St. Charles North 2-0 in Tuesday's Class 3A St. Charles East sectional semifinal held at Norris Stadium.
With the win, West Chicago advances to Saturday's 11 a.m. sectional finals against York, a 3-0 winner over Geneva, in search of its first sectional championship since 1997.
"It's exciting," said Wildcats coach Jose Villa, who was a 4-year varsity player at West Chicago from 2002-2005. "We're looking forward to the next game. This is something our community is here to support.
"I think it's big for us. It's big for our community. It's big for our school. It's big for our team."
Facing a resurgent St. Charles North (11-5-3) squad, it was the North Stars who controlled play for the first 10-plus minutes.
Kuehn turned away North Stars junior forward Luke Persenico early on before an offsides call negated Persenico's goal 7 ½ minutes into the match.
"That would have been a lot of momentum to our team," said Persenico. "It probably would've changed the whole game."
It may have served as a wake-up call for the Wildcats.
"It allowed us to see that this is a game that could go either way," said Villa. "Now, we're chasing the game instead of playing the way we want to play."
Instead, a little more than 4 minutes later, Morfin took a feed from senior teammate Diego Cortes and rocketed a shot into the back of the net to make it 1-0 - on the Wildcats' first scoring chance.
"I saw the defender coming at me," said Morfin. "I took a cut to my left, he dove and I went back to my right and took the shot."
North Stars coach Eric Willson admitted the sudden turnabout may have affected his team.
"We came out flying," said Willson. "That went from an opportunity at their end and all of a sudden at the drop of a hat, they come right back and find the back of the net. That can be pretty demoralizing."
Midway through the second half, Morfin scored his second goal of the match off a picture-perfect pass from senior midfielder Brayam Barrios to give the Wildcats some breathing room.
"He has the freedom to kind of roam around up top," Villa said of Morfin. "He's very technical and he has a way to keep the ball on his feet."
The North Stars had several second-half scoring opportunities to no avail.
"We knew coming in that they play a pretty high line (in the back) - we just couldn't really solve it tonight," said Willson. "They're well-coached and have a fantastic team."
A team that finds itself on history's doorstep.
"We're not done yet - we're taking it all the way to state," said Morfin. "We can't stop here."