St. Charles North pulls out a wild win

Wheaton North goalkeeper Mat Bauer falls to the ground as Brandon Bautista of St. Charles North celebrates after scoring the game-winning goal.
(Shauna Bittle/Courier News)

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St. Charles North kept its improbable postseason run alive Tuesday night, but not without controversy.

The ninth-seeded North Stars (13-8-2), who upset top-seeded Larkin in the previous round, knocked off No. 4 seed Wheaton North 3-2 in overtime in the Class 3A Wheaton North Sectional semifinals.

Senior midfielder Brandon Bautista scored the game-winning goal 3:30 into the extra session, sneaking behind the defense and beating Falcons keeper Mat Bauer to a long pass from Zach Matuszak.

“I just went in there believing I was going to get to it first and that’s what [happened],” Bautista said. “Belief and will. If we wanted to win the game we had to believe in ourselves, believe in each other, and that’s how it was.”

But Bautista and his teammates had to endure a heart-stopping moment at the end of regulation, when Wheaton North’s Trevor Bushhouse sent a high-arcing desperation shot toward the St. Charles goal.

North Stars goalie Zach Holser jumped and got both hands on the ball but had it slip out of his hands and into the net as time expired. The Falcons (11-6-6) started to celebrate but the referee ruled the ball did not cross the line in time.

“I don’t know [whether it was a goal],” Bautista said. “It was so close my heart stopped. I was praying the call would be ‘no goal.’”

“It was not a goal,” North Stars coach Eric Wilson said. “I would have liked Zach to handle that a little bit better than he did and I think nine times out of 10 he does.”

Dan Stanek scored twice for St. Charles, giving his team the lead both times, off assists from Noah Anthony and Luis Ramirez. But Jason Lollar answered with two goals of his own for Wheaton North, the latter of which tied the game with 3:09 left in regulation off a pass from Pat Langan.

“We talked before the game that we kind of felt like we were forgotten this season with the way we’ve been up and down,” Wilson said. “We’ve been on a roller coaster. We felt like the playoffs were our chance to remind people who we are.”

The North Stars will face a tough chore in Saturday’s sectional final against Geneva (20-2-1), which edged Schaumburg 3-2 to extend its winning streak to 12.

Senior forward Shawn Sloan, who just committed to High Point, scored a hat trick for the Vikings to increase his goal total to 29. His final score broke a 2-2 tie with 4:03 to go in the second half and came on a 10-yard shot in traffic.

Schaumburg (17-8) had taken a 2-1 lead on Erhan Caglayan’s goal with 27:25 left, but Sloan tied it with 8:13 remaining, taking a pass from Ben Orr on the right wing and ripping a hard shot through the legs of Saxons goalie Mark Czarny.

“Ben and I have just been really connecting and every time that ball is up in the air he will win that head ball,” Sloan said. “He put it on my foot two times and they were just perfect balls. He played phenomenal in the second half getting me those two goals.”

The Vikings took a 1-0 lead at the 3:19 mark of the first half on an unassisted goal by Sloan. But Schaumburg star Josh Beard tied it on a 27-yard free kick 51 seconds before halftime.

“Schaumburg played a great game,” Sloan said. “They matched us player for player and they just took it to us the first 15 minutes of the second half. I think what it came down to was at the end we just wanted it more. It was an excellent game of soccer.”