Shamrocks nab another regional title

St. Patrick's Jaime Aza (left) fights for a ball with Schurz's Cesar Nava (middle) while Shamrocks forward Frank Ayala watches. Neither team scored in regulation or the four overtime periods but St. Patrick previaled 5-4 in penalty kicks.
(Randy Baran/For Pioneer Press)

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The duel between St. Patrick and Schurz last Friday in the St. Patrick Regional championship was a defensive work of art.

Shamrocks' goalie Chris Williams and Bulldogs' goalie Manuel Eliodoro were fabulous in net and with the game scoreless after regulation, it looked like someone was going to have to get lucky to take home the regional crown.

Four 10-minute overtimes couldn't decide a winner so the game went to penalty kicks.

Third-seeded Schurz made four of its five attempts but that wasn't enough as sixth-seeded St. Patrick found the net on all five kicks to pull off the minor upset, 1-0, and capture its second straight regional crown.

"It was a great game and Schurz is a great team," Shamrocks head coach Dave Nowak said. "They gave us everything we could handle and I think the boys on both sides played fantastic. I just feel fortunate that we came out on top in PK's."

For Schurz, the loss was dejà vu. Less than two weeks earlier the Bulldogs fell in penalty kicks to Lake View in the CPS quarterfinals.

"It's a disappointing loss but I'm proud of our kids," Bulldogs head coach Francisco Lopez said. "They played hard and that's all you can ask of them. Everybody on the field played outstanding."

The players tried to remain upbeat after the loss.

"It wasn't disappointing for me because we all tried our hardest and gave it everything we had," said Schurz sophomore defender Uriel Garcia. "This wasn't like the Lake View game though, because I think we played 10 times harder today. I guess it's just destiny."

Schurz shot first in penalty kicks and Axcer Way drilled home a shot to the lower left side. He was answered by St. Patrick's Josh Del Valle.

The Bulldogs would have their heart broken on their next attempt, when Christopher Anderson's shot bounced off the crossbar.

Miguel Delgado, Eliodoro and Garcia converted Schurz's next three attempts but it wasn't enough.

Andrew Ciepiela, Jon Ortiz and Dave Carta converted their attempts for St. Patrick and Jaime Aza stepped into the box to attempt the game winner.

Aza hesitated just a moment to catch the goalie off guard and then drilled home a shot to the lower left side.

"Sometimes you have to have a little luck there and today we did," Nowak said.

"You just kick them how you practice," Carta said. "I try to zone everything out, like a free throw. Take my shot and hit it."

The Shamrocks (12-11-1) weren't happy with their sectional seed and they used that as extra motivation.

"We thought we should have been ranked higher in the beginning and I think we just proved it," Carta added. "We knew they had a couple of fast forwards so we wanted to stay on them."

With the victory St. Patrick will advance to the St. Ignatius Sectional semifinals against Juarez this week.

"We're going to be playing Public Schools the rest of the way and they pretty much all play the same way so if we come out here and play like this, it will be pretty good," Carta said. "I think we had a lot of good (scoring) chances in this game, we just have to get on the rebounds."

While St. Patrick advances to regionals, Schurz packs it up for the season.

"We had our chances in every game we played this season and this game was no different," Lopez said. "Even though we made some mistakes today, it doesn't take away from what these kids did."