Eagles beat Warriors in first-place showdown

Caden Loveland scored the second and game-winning goal for South Park in a 2-1 win over Elizabeth Forward.

Before Thursday, the last Section 3-2A match that Elizabeth Forward’s boys soccer team didn’t manage to win came at South Park in a 0-0 draw on Aug. 29.

Nearly a month later, the Warriors (8-3-1, 7-1-1) dropped their first section match of the season in the home rematch against the Eagles (10-1-1, 8-0-1) Thursday night in a 2-1 result.

The two came into the game tied atop the section with Seton LaSalle right behind them at 7-2, but both losses came against EF and South Park.

Elizabeth Forward coach Doug Finke acknowledged that the loss might’ve given the section title to the Eagles, but he doesn’t want his Warriors to dwell on it.

“We really wanted that section title, but this isn’t gonna define our season,” he said. “We have to bounce back, stay together, and keep fighting because we’ve got bigger goals.

“We didn’t reach goal one, but goal two is just advancing as far as we can in the playoffs. We have to bounce back in a big way and keep working towards what we want to get.”

South Park opened the match on the front foot, controlling possession and being positive going towards EF, but goalkeeper Matt Johnston was only forced into one early save on a header from a corner.

The Elizabeth Forward backline was aware as South Park was constantly looking to play through, but most attempts were cut off by center backs Jakub McKelvey and Ron Chambers, who shifted to center back after starting the match at right back.

With 21 minutes left, one of those through balls finally found its way through the stingy EF backline as South Park’s Danny Battista was in on goal all alone, but Johnston made a crucial save to keep the match scoreless.

As the Eagles continued trying to score their first goal, McKelvey was a rock at his position, putting in tackles left and right to make sure that South Park couldn’t break through. Despite having most of the possession, the Eagles just couldn’t take advantage.

With 11 minutes left in the first half, the Warriors generated their first real chance as Carson Ruffing received a pass and looked to curl a ball towards goal from about 20 yards out, but his effort went wide.

Just a few minutes later, the Warriors took advantage of their second chance of the night and opened the scoring.

After a mistake from South Park, a quick strike from EF was saved by Cooper Hochendoner, but the rainy conditions didn’t allow him to catch the shot as he parried it into the path of Luca Valerio. Valerio kept his cool and slotted one into the bottom right corner of the net from about six yards out to make it 1-0 in favor of the home Warriors.

The goal only made South Park more urgent, and it soon made a breakthrough to tie the match at 1-1 before halftime. With 3:43 left in the first half, Dawson Battista got on the end of a corner kick and volleyed home to square things up.

South Park got the first chance of the second half after a few minutes as Danny Battista was close to reaching a through ball, but Johnston came out and claimed it first.

With 28 minutes to play, South Park almost scored their second goal of the match on two chances. First, Ryan Wesolowski beat Johnston to a ball and popped it over him, but Nate Grimm was there for the Warriors to head it away before it could go in the net. Then, Aiden Fehr won a header in the box, but he put it wide as the score remained 1-1.

Finally, with 21:02 left to play, South Park took a 2-1 lead through Caden Loveland.

Johnston made a sliding challenge to win another through ball, but it ended up right in the path of Loveland as the keeper wasn’t back in his net. The Eagle popped it into the empty net to give his squad its first advantage of the match.

Elizabeth Forward had a free kick from about 30 yards away with 5:02 left, but the ball was played right into the hands of Hochendoner and the danger was averted for South Park.

Eventually, the clock struck zero and the Warriors were out of time to try and find an equalizer.

Up next for EF is a trip to Steel Valley on Tuesday.

“You set goals before the season, but we’ve been in this situation before,” Finke said. “We don’t know what’s gonna happen with (South Park) the rest of the season. We just gotta keep controlling what we can control to put ourselves in the best situation so that, if they do slip up, we’re right there.”