Trojans fulfill coach's prediction

Timothy Christian coach Rudy Gesch saw this coming four years ago.

Then the Elmhurst school's eighth-grade coach, Gesch predicted good things for his boys soccer players when they were high school seniors.

Tuesday night at Lisle, the Trojans advanced to the Class 1A Final Four with a 2-1 victory against Morgan Park Academy.

"The eighth-grade year I said to the varsity coach, just wait till 2008 when these guys are seniors," Gesch recalled. "They're going to state."

The Trojans (17-5-1) will make their first state appearance since 2002 at 5:30 p.m. Friday when they meet Waterloo Gibault in the semifinals at North Central College in Naperville.

Timothy Christian scored the first goal Tuesday on a 40-yard run through the heart of the Morgan Park Academy defense by senior Justin Groenewold in the eighth minute.

"We've been telling him for four years, take people on," senior captain Jake Schemper said. "He usually chickens out. But he just cut through like butter and put it in. It was pretty outstanding."

The Warriors tied the game 10 minutes later, when Milan Tica took advantage of a Trojans mistake in the penalty area to knock in a goal.

Timothy got the goal back in the 51st minute, Corey Phillip putting away a rebound that the Morgan Park Academy defense couldn't clear. The Trojans tried to add to their lead but missed some good chances.

"It's hard to believe. We're in the Final Four at state and we still have yet to play a perfect game," Gesch said. "We generated a ton of chances. I thought we could've been up 3, 4, maybe even scored a fifth goal. But it wasn't to be, and we held on."

They held on because their defense was solid, allowing just 1 second-half shot. That shot came with 2:33 to play from outside the penalty area and sailed well over the Timothy Christian net.

"Coach stresses fitness so much in practice, and I just felt that we were the more fit team," Schemper said. "It showed, because they really didn't have any opportunities in the last 20 minutes. We just kind of shut them down."

"We made a defensive shift three games ago against Lisle and we've stuck with it ever since," Gesch added.

That shift included moving Schemper to a stopper's role, where he excelled against Morgan Park Academy. Senior Jonathon Voss man-marked Tica and held him in check.

"It's a special team," Gesch said. "It's a goal we set at the beginning of the year to be in the final four, and we're not through yet."