Christian Academy wins SCISA AA boys soccer state championship

Columbia – The rout was on.

The Greenwood Christian School boys soccer team scored three goals in an 8-minute time span in the first half of the SCISA AA state championship match against Christian Academy of Myrtle Beach on Saturday. That left the trailing Saints in a state of shock.

“Everybody was looking at each other,” said CA senior midfielder Ryan Kristensen. “The other team was telling us it was over. We knew it wasn’t over.”

Turns out Kristensen and his teammates were right.

Christian Academy cut the lead to 3-2 by the break and added two more goals in the second half while holding the Hawks scoreless the rest of the way for a 4-3 victory at Hammond School’s Edens Stadium.

Both teams came into the match with 18-2 records, so the Saints finished at 19-2 and Greenwood Christian at 18-3.

While not against the same foe, the Saints saw this as a bit of sweet revenge from last season. They played for the state championship last year but lost to Beaufort Academy 2-1.

“We’ve been looking forward to this since last year,” said CA head coach Gael Perez. “It means the world to us. After that happened, me and the boys regrouped. This was the goal, this was the goal.”

And it was a goal that didn’t look like it would be realized halfway through the first half. After a scoreless first 10 minutes, GCS scored on a free kick by Brady Durbin with 29 minutes, 35 seconds, remaining in the first half.

Just over three minutes later, Greenwood Christian had another goal. Isaiah Scott-Palacios put a short shot in the back of the net at the 26:15 mark after getting past the Christian Academy backline. The Hawks made it 3-0 when Owen Whittington got a goal with 21:14 left in the half.

Though no one knew it at the time, that would be all the scoring for GCS. Greenwood Christian head coach Samuel Iriarte believes his team may have become a bit too comfortable with the situation.

“Obviously we scored very quickly in the first half, and then I think we got overconfident,” Iriarte said. “I think we lost our heart. The other team had more heart, wanted to come back and they did. We lost our intensity.”

        It still took the Saints almost 13 more minutes before they started to chip away at the deficit. Sophomore midfielder Aubrey Hall finally got CA on the scoreboard with a goal with 8:23 left. The other goal came just before the break when senior midfielder Lee McColl scored during stoppage to make it 3-2.

               Perez believes breaking the ice with the initial goal just built a wave of momentum for his team.

“They knew they had to come in and play with emotion and heart,” Perez said. “They realized coming 3-nil down was a mountain to come up. I think after his (Hall's) goal it just motivated the players.”

Kristensen agreed.

“We had chances before, but we just weren’t capitalizing on them,” he said.

It didn’t take Christian Academy long to tie the score once play resumed. Senior midfielder Jack Green scored at the 36:53 mark of the second half to make it 3-3. That set the stage for what would be a beautiful winning goal.

The Saints got a free kick about 50 yards from the goal. Kristensen took the kick and lifted it where it came down about five yards from and directly in front of the Hawks’ net. McColl went up and got his head on the ball, directing it to the net with 26:15 left in the match to put CA up 4-3.

As it had done since the flurry of goals, Christian Academy’s defense kept GCS from making many deep forays toward its goal.

“We just started being more aggressive on both sides of the ball,” Krisetensen said. “We decided to be more direct and capitalize on the kicks we already missed. We made more of our chances.”

While coming up short of the ultimate goal, Ariarte was pleased with the season Greenwood Christian had.

“This is the best team we’ve had in a while at our school,” he said. “I’m proud of the way they played. They played above my expectations, and I’m proud of them for that.”