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Oh, G-Men: Garfield stuns South Range in semifinal
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Jonah Wilson (13) and Andrew O’Leary (5) of South Range battle Garfield’s Ante Dejanovic (14) for control of the ball in the first half of a Division III district semifinal Tuesday night. Garfield won, 1-0, and will meet Crestview in a district final Saturday.
By Brandon Judeh
North Lima
The South Range boys soccer team wanted nothing more than a district title match with Inter-Tri County League Tier 1 rival Crestview.
That dream came to a surprising halt when James A. Garfield stunned the Raiders, 1-0, on Tuesday night at South Range Memorial Field.
The Raiders’ dreams were dashed in the eighth minute of the second half when, after a near-goal by South Range’s Tyler Ausenheimer, the G-Men pushed the ball forward and found Ante Dejanovic.
Dejanovic raced past the Raiders’ defenders and kicked the ball past Brant Rothbauer for the game’s lone goal.
“After we missed that goal, the guys got a little flat,” South Range coach Bill Wagenhouser said. “When you do that, you kind of hang your head a little and are late getting back and Garfield is a fast team and they got up the field quick.”
The G-Men controlled the first-half tempo and had several chances to take a lead.
This kind of aggressive play did not surprise coach Wagenhouser.
“We weren’t surprised at all,” he said. “We expected exactly what happened. We talked to the kids before the game about their speed and how they like to pack it in on defense.”
Missed opportunities were the story of the game for the Raiders, who missed on several scoring chances.
Perhaps their best opprtunity shot came in the 32nd minute of the second half, when a corner kick went just right of the goal.
“We had a lot of chances out there, but you have to score goals and we didn’t put them in,” Wagenhouser said.
Most of the Raiders — 18 players to be exact — will return next season. But for seniors Patrick McCarthy, Andrew O’Leary and Ausenheimer, this is the end of the line.
“This is really hard, especially losing on our own field,” Ausenheimer said. “It just doesn’t seem real. It will be weird not going to practice.”
McCarthy agrees.
“It’s surreal, it really is,” he said. “The same thing happened to us last year in the district semifinals when we lost in overtime. It doesn’t seem real.”
“This is very disappointing,” an emotional O’Leary said. “This is our last game in this stadium and to lose by one goal is heart breaking, I can’t even really describe it.”
Wagenhouser tried kept his team’s spirits up after the loss. While his team was sitting on the bench, trying to soak in what had just happened, he told them, “Guys, practice here tomorrow, then you can take Thursday off,” which brought laughter to the distraught team.
“You need to have fun out here, the kids work hard and we played hard,” Wagenhouser said. “It’s always fun and I have a great group of boys.”
Rothbauer had six saves, while Garfield’s Alex Radwanski made four saves in his shutout.