Warriors and Cadets square off in a barnburner
Flynn's late goal secures Wheaton Academy's 4-2 win over Marmion

By Gary Larsen

Somehow the sequels just keep matching the original.

The rivalry between Wheaton Academy and Marmion gave fans another exciting chapter on Wednesday, as the host Warriors took a 3-0 halftime lead, the Cadets stormed back to make it 3-2, and Wheaton Academy finally nailed down the win with a Gareth Flynn goal at 71 minutes.

Raucous fans for both teams under the lights in West Chicago combined to make for a postseason feel from start to finish.

“Marmion’s always been our rival and we have a lot of respect for them,” Wheaton Academy’s Devin Moore said. “They play a similar style to ours in terms of possession and intensity, so we know what to expect. It’s always fun and we know it’s going to be an intense game.

We know players on other teams are going to make big plays and we’re going to make big plays, and we were able to hold on tonight.”

The Warriors’ Stephen Fernandes took yet another incremental step forward in his season-long acclimation from defender to attacking player, netting two goals before halftime.

The first came at 5 minutes. Fernandes took off on a 40-yard drive up the field, leaving defenders in his wake before finishing on the game’s first goal. After Flynn made it 2-0 at 27 minutes, Fernandes struck again in the 40th minute, set up by a Brian McLean free kick.

The ball was booted around in small space before Fernandes toe-poked it home to put his side up 3-0. “It’s been fun to watch. He’s become a student of the game,” Warriors coach Jeff Brooke said of Fernandes’ transition to the attack.

“He was kind of a target and we were happy with that, but now he’s turned into more of a dynamic force. He’s going to play at a really high level in college.”

Fernandes leads the team in scoring this season, as the natural-born defender continues to play outside his comfort zone.

“It took a few games to get used to, and I’m just starting to get used to the spacing,” Fernandes said. “It’s all about spacing. I’ve been talking a lot to Timmy (Daniels) about it. Basically you have to wait, find open space, and call for the ball. It’s so different from anything I’ve played.”

With a 3-0 halftime lead, Wheaton Academy (12-5-1) knew that Marmion (10-5-6) wasn’t going anywhere.

At times the Cadets put on a clinic on how to work the ball through the midfield, but through 40 minutes they had nothing to show for it.

Cadets’ junior Mike Frasca came close, however. Frasca sent a header just wide at 7 minutes, forced Warriors’ keeper Jesse Carmody to make a diving save at 13 minutes, and ripped a shot off the post a minute later.

Still, Marmion coach Kevin O’Connor and junior Mick Maley agreed that in the first half, Wheaton Academy had what Marmion lacked in the final third.

“Conviction,” Maley said.

“We played very good soccer through the midfield, until we got into the final third,” O’Connor said. “We put some nice things together in the first half but once we got into the box, with the exception of Frasca, nothing else happened.

In the second half we saw a lot more conviction. We asked our wing players to run the flanks more so we could pinch the strikers in a little bit more, and that helped us. We made it a game.”

Like Fernandes, Maley moved from the back line into the attack this year, and the junior was a jet-propelled piece of Marmion’s attack all night, running right at Warriors’ defenders throughout.

Watching Maley and the Warriors’ Moore tangle at midfield was a treat for fans from both sides.

“He’s a fantastic player and he has a ton of speed,” Moore said of Maley. “When he has space he can just take off. By the end of the game we brought Frankie Della Torre back to help shut down his space, because with space he can make a lot of things happen.”

Maley burst into the penalty area on the right side at 48 minutes and earned a penalty kick on a holding call. Frasca buried the PK to make get Marmion on the board.

Two minutes later, Juan Pablo Jasso sent a ball ahead to Maley, who dribbled up the middle of the field before laying a ball off to Jake Hutchison. Hutchison took a touch and scored from 14 yards out, and suddenly fans had a one-goal game on their hands with 30 long minutes left to play.

“I don’t think we came out intimidated but maybe we came out respecting them a little too much,” Maley said. “They’re a big, athletic team but I think we realized we can play with these guys. Our energy picked up and we created more chances in the second half.”

“In the first half we were possessing for possession’s sake. It looked pretty but it didn’t do anything to get us a goal. In the second half we had possession with a purpose, and getting in on goal, and that’s what created chances for us.”
With their lead reduced to a single goal, the Warriors worked to wrestle the game’s momentum back from the Cadets.

“We’ve seen all the ups and downs of every game, and now that we’ve seen it all it’s easier for us to stay together, and stick it out,” Moore said. We’ve been growing and adapting throughout the season. We play a lot of big teams, and we’re used to feeling momentum shifts.

It’s just hard work. We’ve been telling our guys that all season. It doesn’t have to be the most beautiful, upper-ninety goal. You work hard and it will come.”

The teams traded punches from there. Fernandes blasted a shot from 14 yards out that Marmion keeper Evan Lefelstein saved at 55 minutes, and Frasca ripped a left-footed shot from 20 yards out that nearly brushed the post on its way over the end line at 60 minutes.

Lefelstein made three quality saves in a 3-minute span, beginning at 69 minutes and starting with an airborne stop of a Flynn blast. With Fernandes bearing down to follow it up, Lefelstein dove at the post to corral the deflection.

Lefelstein deflected a Zebediah Lewis shot off the crossbar at 70 minutes before the Warriors finally solved him. Fernandes crossed a ball from right to left and Flynn won a streetfight for the ball with Lefelstein before sending a shot towards an empty net.

A Marmion player attempted to clear Flynn’s shot off the goal line, but the AR ruled it a goal. Marmion kept fighting from there but the score held to the final buzzer.

“You’re always fighting for the momentum in a game like this,” Brooke said. “I was proud of the way the boys went after that fourth goal. And Flynn, coming back from injury, I thought his goal was just a high-work-rate goal. That showed a lot of character from him.”

Brooke was also pleased with Della Torre’s play at midfield down the stretch, while O’Connor was happy to see his side play with pride in the second half.
 
“There was a lot of fight. We like to think we can do that for eighty minutes, but we didn’t do it for eighty tonight,” O’Connor said. “I like the way we competed being down 3-0. We didn’t feel sorry for ourselves or put our tails between our legs. We competed.

You get down 3-0 to this team and you’ve put yourself in a heck of a hole. You can’t play 40 minutes against a team like Wheaton Academy.”

The win for the Warriors gave them second place in the Suburban Christian Conference with an 7-1 record, while Marmion is in third place with a record of 6-2. Marian Central Catholic leads the SCC with a perfect 8-0 record, having beaten both Marmion and Wheaton Academy in overtime games this season.