With the game in the balance and overtime looming, Sacred Heart needed something memorable to happen.
And memorable was just what the Crusaders got.
Freshman Sam McKee scored on a rebound just seconds into second-half stoppage time to give Sacred Heart a dramatic 2-1 victory over St. Patrick Saturday night at Klein Field in the third round of the Class I playoffs.
The Crusaders (14-4-1 overall) will get a chance to defend their South State title from last season Tuesday night against Region 8-I rival St. Stanislaus at Bay St. Louis. The Fighting Irish completed their season 11-12-1.
“For me, it’s us with the ball,” said Sacred Heart coach Kevin Treminio. “I don’t worry about us off the ball without possession. The key is always finding solutions. We did that tonight.”
St. Patrick is also a region rival, and the Crusaders had their way with the Irish in the two regular-season meetings, winning 1-0 at Biloxi and 3-0 at home.
But it was a different St. Pat team that showed us Saturday when it counted the most. The Fighting Irish took the fight to Sacred Heart through much of the first half, and it paid off in the 27th minute.
“When you beat a team twice, the third time, the boys always go in confident, ‘you know, we beat them before,’” said Treminio. “And that was my challenge. How can I motivate them? And I thought me and my assistant did a good job of that.”
After a holding foul was called from just 20 yards from the goal, St. Patrick’s Sam Burke slammed the free kick past Crusader senior goalkeeper Hayes Burks.
“The response from the team was so great; I’m so proud of them,” said senior midfielder Mateo Rouhbakhsh. “We were really unlucky to give up that first goal on the free kick.
“We bounced back, increased our energy, kept on pressing and we were lucky enough to get the goal back.”
Facing a deficit against St. Patrick for the first time this season, Sacred Heart did in fact kick its game into a higher gear.
Just two minutes after conceding the goal, Rouhbakhsh fired a free kick from near midfield that was off-line, but forced Irish keeper John Dreger out of the net to block out the back end of the field, resulting in a corner kick from the right side.
The kick from Rouhbakhsh was high, but junior Ethan Haigler executed a perfect bicycle kick from six yards out to stick the ball into the upper right side of the net.
“All the credit goes to Ethan there,” said Rouhbakhsh. “All season long, he’s been so dominant on corner kicks. Every time we get one, he’s been an incredible threat. I know if I put it in a decent area, he’s going to do the rest.”
The tying goal also seemed to galvanize the Crusaders defensively, as well, because they were suffocating the rest of the way.
“Me and Mateo, we’ve been working on that play every single day at practice,” said Haigler. “We work on corner kicks every day after practice. I knew one was coming eventually.
That was evident as the second half unfolded. The Crusaders played keep away with the ball, denying St. Patrick any opportunities to score. The Irish didn’t get a shot of any kind until the 77th minute, and nothing on goal until almost the very end.
“I’ll use my favorite quote, if they don’t have the ball, you don’t get scored on,” said Treminio.
St. Patrick was equally tough on defense, allowing a shot in the 50 minute and only five for the half. In fact, the Crusaders only had three shots on goal the whole game, but two of them found the back of the net.
“At the halftime break, we just told each other that we had to calm down,” said Haigler. “Most of the time, the only time they were breaking our (back) line was through counterattacks.
“So we knew that if we calmed down, set up in our defensive shell, they weren’t going to get anything past us.”
It was Rouhbakhsh who set the winning score in motion, drawing foul from 25 yards out to the left of the goal in the 80th minute.
“Our whole system, thanks to Kevin, is just moving the ball, passing the ball,” said Rouhbakhsh. “We’re most dangerous when we have the ball, and they weren’t any threat to us when they had the ball.
“So it was just a matter of finding our feet, finding the guys to play the ball forward and getting those links to make plays.”
The resulting free kick came to senior Logan Anderson in a crowd of players, and Anderson put a point-blank shot on goal. Dreger blocked that shot, but had no chance to stop the rebound off the foot of McKee.
“I knew there wasn’t much time left on the clock, and I knew somebody had to score,” said McKee. “I knew if there was going to be a rebound, I was going to get it. Didn’t matter where it was going. I just hit it and it went in.”
That set in motion a wild finish, as the Crusaders tried to either kill time or get a third goal against the desperate Irish, who committed players forward trying to retie the game.
St. Patrick’s best chance came in the eighth minute of stoppage time, when the Irish put a shot on frame off a long free kick near midfield, but the shot had nothing on it, and Burks made a routine save, and that was the game.
The Crusaders believe they have a score to settle with St. Stanislaus, after the Rockachaws won both regular-season meetings, taking the first meeting 2-0, then winning a penalty-kick shootout after playing to a 1-1 tie at Hattiesburg.
“I learned a lot from those two games,” said Treminio. “It’s like I told the boys, we owe them one.”
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