Mike Frasca, Mick Maley fuel Marmion victory

Updated: October 25, 2011 9:40PM

With several members of Marmion’s soccer program also involved in Junior ROTC, the Cadets understood the importance of closing ranks and staying in formation in order to advance to Friday’s championship of the Class 2A Freeport Sectional.

With goalie Brad White and the Marmion defense withstanding an early barrage by East Moline United, the Cadets adjusted their defense and utilized counterattacks to key a 3-0 victory.

Once again, the one-two punch of Mike Frasca and Mick Maley fueled the offense and led to a sixth consecutive triumph while the defense chalked up its second shutout in a row.

Marmion (17-6-3) advances to Friday’s 6 p.m. championship against a red-hot Sterling squad, which picked up its 20th straight victory with a 2-1 win over Belvidere North in the second semifinal.

“Even though they had the better start, we had 80 minutes of focus and effort. We stayed organized so that in the end it was all about execution,” said Frasca, whose corner kick led to a Maley goal with 19:40 left before halftime to put Marmion ahead. “I’m so proud of my teammates and how we adjusted to contain them. It really was a team effort all the way around the field.”

Maley returned the favor 14:15 into the second half with a corner kick that set up Frasca for his team-best 40th goal of the season. It was the 16th assist of the year for Maley, who had a breakaway that covered 70 yards before netting his 21st goal of the year with 11:05 left.

“East Moline is a very dangerous ballclub and the first 10 to 12 minutes they gave us all kinds of problems,” Marmion coach Kevin O’Connor said. “We had to adjust our defense and make certain we stayed organized the rest of the match and that’s exactly what we did.

“Once we made some defensive switches, we started to frustrate them because they couldn’t connect up top and we started playing early balls into gaps to spring counterattacks. Those led to both corner kicks from which we got important goals.”

The Cadets were playing without standout senior midfielder Matt Switzer (team-high 18 assists), who is recovering from a knee injury sustained early in the first half of the Cadets’ regional title win over Kaneland.

O’Connor added words of praise of outside midfielder Eddie Graham, who moved into Switzer’s slot, along with forward Luke Elder and defensive anchor Alex Ruble.

“All three of those guys did an exceptionally good job for us,” O’Connor said. “We had a tremendous work rate as a team and truly played really hard to earn this win.”

East Moline finished the season 12-12-1.

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