Cardinal Newman wins fifth consecutive SCISA boys soccer state title

Columbia – The Cardinal Newman High School boys soccer team won its fifth consecutive state championship on Saturday, beating Hammond School 4-0 at Hammond’s Edens Stadium. In the opinion of Cardinals head coach Will Eudy though, this one’s a little bit different.

“We’re the only undefeated team in our state right now,” Eudy told his team in the postgame celebration. “ I don’t care who we had to play. I don’t care about the other stuff. Every time you guys were called on, you answered it.

“You enjoy this. You sit here with your family and your friends, you enjoy this. You take every freaking picture. You smile and you have fun.”

Cardinal Newman finished 19-0-1 on the season with its only blemish being a tie. The Cardinals beat the Skyhawks, their archrival,  by a 4-0 count for the third time this season. They allowed only 12 goals for the year.

“I’m super proud of these guys,” Eudy said. “They’ve answered the bell every time it has come. It’s not easy. I’m proud of them. It’s been a heck of a year.”

“We’ve had a lot of great teams here, a lot of great players, but I don’t know if we’ve put together the type of performances like this group has. You know when you go undefeated you don’t lose one you’re not supposed to and that’s hard. You always give it your best. That was not easy.”

Leading the way for CN was senior forward Grayson White. He scored three of the four goals. While he has been the team leader with 33 goals and 27 assists, White said what was accomplished has been a team effort.

“It’s great. Our teammates are fantastic,” said White, who will play collegiately for Suwanee. “We just set out we were going to go undefeated from the start of the year. That was the goal. We played every single game to the best of our ability and we won every single game. There was not a single game we went out there and lost which is something not a lot of teams can say. It’s so much fun to play with this team.”

           The match was scoreless for almost the first 20 minutes of the first half. Cardinal Newman broke the ice when Owen Thompson fed White for a goal with 20 minutes, 39 seconds, left in the first half. It was almost another 15 minutes before the Cardinals scored again. Once again, it was White, but he needed no help this time.

           White performed a corner kick from the right side of the goal. He put a left hook on the ball and put it in the back of the net to make it 2-0 with 6:28 left in the half.

           “I saw the wall, then I saw he was leaving the front post open, so I tried to hit it over the front post area, White said. “We were lucky he was on the back post, and it was good it went in on the front side.”

           The Cardinals took control early in the second half when Thompson scored with 31:36 remaining in the match. White scored his final goal at the 27:18 mark.

           “If anybody in high school has had a better season than Grayson White I’d like to see it because that dude’s been on fire,” Eudy said. “He’s done it in every big game. Not that there isn’t anyone else, but he’s been amazing.”

           For Hammond, it was a case of being a bridesmaid once again. The Skyhawks have played in the championship match for the sixth time in seven years, winning the state championship once.

           “Needless to say, it was disappointing day for us,” said Hammond head coach Adrian Pinasco. “The whole team was expecting to compete a little better, to respond with soccer plays more, create more offensive situations, keep it more on the Cardinal Newman side. In some areas we couldn’t perform the way we were expecting.”

           Piscano was pleased with how the Skyhawks advanced to the title match again after starting the season by losing five of its first six matches.

           “The real factor wasn’t soccer-related,” said Piscano, who has been the head coach at Hammond for 20 years. “What turned it around was the commitment to each other. There was a point they went together (in a team meeting). They referred to it as “that one night.” If a kid doesn’t want to work hard nothing will happen. They wanted to change and improve the situation. That started happening and we started clicking.”

Eudy said his defensive backfield has been amazing all years and allowing less than one goal a match speaks volumes. CN has a fifth-year starter in senior Ben Pickren in goal. The rest of the backfield is made up of senior Tristen Berzins, junior Dakota Venugopal, junior Alvaro Carrasco, sophomore Luke Stanek and sophomore Jacob Stanek.

           The other seniors on the Cardinal Newman roster are Matthew Herrmann, Topher Johnson and Brady Cote.

           Eudy also congratulated his coaching staff of JR Roth, Greg White, Greg Vallee, Chase Battafarano, Gerald Eichelberger, Izzy Ayala and Rod Lapin.