Stagg gets past Sandburg in OT

Updated: March 22, 2011 5:16PM

Stagg's boys soccer team has a tradition of singing the school song after every road victory. For a team that had 12 consecutive games away from home to start the season due to the construction of a turf field, you'd think the Chargers would know the song much better than they do.

Regardless, the mumbling chorus following the team's Class 3A regional final at Andrew was music to the ears of Stagg coach Mike Kealy after Zack Judickas scored his second goal of the game off a long throw-in from Zack Golob with 3:10 left in triple overtime to give the Chargers a 2-1 victory Saturday over Sandburg.

Judickas gave Stagg (13-5-2) a 1-0 lead on a shot from 20 yards 11:07 into the game with his first goal and his game-winner gave his team an important playoff-first.

"[The win] means a lot because we've never beaten [Sandburg] in the playoffs before in soccer," said Judickas, who has 18 goals on the season.

The victory was the 10th straight for the Chargers, who had a closed-door meeting after starting the season 3-5-2.

"We came to a point where I gave the kids a whole hour-and-a-half to just talk and iron out some things and make changes," Kealy said. "This group of 15 seniors was used to winning and when the adversity came they didn't deal with it well. But they got on the same page and pulled us through."

But it almost didn't happen. Jeff Grider scored with 10:40 left in regulation to tie the game at 1 for Sandburg (16-5). Then Eric Maier appeared to have won it for the Eagles when Pat Passafiume and Danny Lojek combined to set him up for a deflected goal from six yards 2:17 into the first overtime. But the goal was judged to have been offsides and Stagg was handed a second-life.

"When they [looked to have] won it, I didn't know what to think. It would have been my last game. It was definitely devastating," Judickas said. "When they called it back I was so happy we got a second chance. We knew we had to make the best of it and give it everything we had."

Chris Kosior had five saves for Stagg. Adam Zehme made seven saves for Sandburg (16-6).

© 2012 Sun-Times Media, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed without permission. For more information about reprints and permissions, visit www.suntimesreprints.com. To order a reprint of this article, click here.