Second-half goal lifts De La Salle past Prairie Ridge

Hoffman Estates High School — HOFFMAN ESTATES – As he and his blond-headed Prairie Ridge soccer teammates broke their huddle just before the start of the second half, fierce senior center back Seth Matson pulled everyone back in.

And glared.

“We WILL win this game,” Matson said.

Neither Matson nor any other Wolves player could will their team to victory Friday, however.

De La Salle scored midway through the second half, and that’s all the Meteors needed to pull out a 1-0 win in a Class 2A state semifinal at Hoffman Estates High School.

Prairie Ridge (19-5-1), which was playing at state for the first time since it won the Class A championship in 1999, will play Lemont (23-4-1) at 9 a.m. Saturday for third place. De La Salle (27-1-2) will face Belleville Althoff Catholic (25-4) for the title at 4:30 p.m.

Prairie Ridge had its eight-game winning streak snapped.

“The whole game, even until the end, I thought we were going to win,” Matson said. “As a center back, you kind of get a feel for how things are going. [De La Salle] didn’t really have any opportunities where they were breaking our back four. They were breaking our midfield, but I didn’t feel like they were going to score the whole game.”

It appeared Matson’s halftime positivity may have helped spark his team, as Prairie Ridge generated more offense in the first 10 to 15 minutes of the second half than it did the entire first 40 minutes. Wolves forward Tony Castro, who didn’t start the game, was involved in multiple chances, once missing the net with a volley after a cross to the far post and later flicking a header in the box that just missed connecting with Henry Knoll.

Less than 10 minutes later, Knoll, who leads Prairie Ridge with 24 goals, had maybe his best opportunity of the match. But his low, hard shot from the top of the box was smothered by Meteors keeper Jahir Anaya (four saves).

Then, sure enough, on its first good scoring chance of the half, De La Salle capitalized. An unsuccessful clear in the Prairie Ridge box led to 5-foot-5 Alex Panduro finishing a low shot to the far post past Wolves keeper Christopher Zinevich (three saves) off a pass from Nathan Gutierrez with 22:03 left.

“We just got unlucky,” Matson said of the clearing attempt. “I don’t think [the ball] left our box.”

Prairie Ridge kept the pressure up after falling behind. Knoll ran onto a through ball from Logan Braun and angled a hard shot that Anaya stopped again.

“De La Salle is a very physical team,” Knoll said. “They were on me the entire game. I think most times I was either double-teamed or man marked. It was different than other games because obviously it’s an intense moment being in a state semifinal. We’re really proud that we got here. We just couldn’t do enough on offense to break through.”

The game was physical enough that a combined six yellow cards were issued. De La Salle was credited with five shots on goal, compared with the Wolves’ four.

“I thought we controlled the second half,” Prairie Ridge coach Josef Schroeder said. “They got that one break, and that was it. We just could not generate close-enough opportunities to equalize. I thought [De La Salle] did a good job of staying organized in the back and just countering us.”

Prairie Ridge’s players recognized the significance of what they accomplished this season. On Wednesday, one night after beating Benet in the Wheaton Academy Supersectional to earn the program’s first state berth in 25 years, they had a team-bonding event.

Knoll said the mother of Wolves sophomore defender Andrew Eisch owns a salon, True Colors Hair Studio, in downtown Crystal Lake.

“She was nice enough to bleach all of our hair,” Knoll said, smiling.

He and his teammates will surely always remember it, just like this season.