Mendota dominates start to finish in 1A IVC Sectional semifinal

CHILLICOTHE - Last fall, the Mendota boys soccer team came up short in a sectional semifinal against Quincy Notre Dame, losing in penalty kicks.

Entering this season, the Trojans’ goal was to return to the sectional and advance further.

Mission accomplished.

Mendota controlled the game from start to finish Saturday to defeat Beardstown 5-0 in a Class 1A Illinois Valley Central Sectional semifinal.

“It feels great,” Mendota junior Isaac Diaz said. “Our whole mission was to get back to the sectional. Last year we felt we could have went further, but it didn’t go as planned.”

The Trojans (22-2-1) advance to play Peoria Christian (22-2-2) in the sectional championship at 6 p.m. Wednesday. The Chargers advanced with a 4-1 win over Alleman in Saturday’s first semifinal.

Mendota defeated Peoria Christian 4-2 on Oct. 15 in Mendota.

“It’s going to be a great game,” Mendota coach Nick Myers said. “Obviously, they’re going to come in fired up because we were able to knock them off last week. They’ve got their captain (defensive midfielder Quenton Hynek) back. He’s got a broken arm but he’s playing, so they’re at full strength. It’s going to be quite a battle. If we come to play and we don’t start out slow, I think we have a great opportunity.”

Along with playing to win the second sectional title in program history, the Trojans have the extra incentive of earning another home game as the supersectional is at Mendota.

“That would mean everything,” Mendota senior Mauricio Martinez said. “We’ve only been in a supersectional once, so it would be great to go back again.”

On Saturday, the Trojans controlled possession from the start but couldn’t get on the board until late in the first half.

“It would have been nice from a nerves standpoint if we could have got one a lot sooner than we did,” Myers said. “We did discuss before the game that the first five minutes were important, like don’t give up a silly one, get into the game and go from there. I thought we dominated possession. We just struggled for a while to put one in. I was happy with the way we played. Once we got the first one, I think the nerves went away a little bit.”

The Trojans got on the board when Johan Cortez sent a through ball to Diaz, who dribbled around the keeper and found the back of the net with 13:02 left in the first half.

“We got a counter attack,” Diaz said. “Johan dribbled up the field. I made a run behind the defenders. He saw me. I got the ball, dribbled around the keeper and tapped it in.

“It felt great. It felt like the floodgates opened.”

The score remained 1-0 at halftime before the Trojans broke the game open in the second half.

Diaz headed in a goal with 29:19 left in the game and Mendota added two more in the next seven minutes.

Cortez blasted a shot into the upper left corner of the net from the top of the box with 23:16 left and Cesar Casas poked a pass from Cortez past the keeper for a goal with 22:45 to go.

Danny Garcia tacked on one more for Mendota on a free kick just outside the box with 3:34 left.

“The second half we talked about moving the ball faster,” Myers said. “We knew we were quicker than them up front. We have a tendency of starting a little slow. We don’t play terribly, but we just ease into things then normally in the second half we come alive.”

The Trojan defense limited the Tigers to just three shots on goal.

“We stayed our shape and we really communicated back there,” Martinez said. “We just played really well back there.”