Heartbreak again: Trojans lose 1-0 to DeLaSalle in State soccer tournament

Oct. 27—EDEN PRAIRIE — It was another heartbreaking loss in the Class AA State soccer tournament for the Worthington Trojans, as they fell 1-0 to the DeLaSalle Islanders on a rain-soaked Thursday night.

The fourth-seeded Trojans were entering the state tournament for the fifth time in seven years and the third time in a row, but had yet to win a match in the tournament, despite coming very close multiple times.

Last year, the Trojans lost 2-1 to Richfield after tying the game at 1-all and the year before that, they lost to Willmar on penalty kicks.

This year, they were going up against the reigning Class AA State champions who rolled through their Section 5AA tournament, including winning their first-round game 15-0.

Despite the Trojans entering as the higher seed and the favorite, the result Thursday was the same as many of the ones in the past, another narrow, heartbreaking loss. No. 5 seed DeLaSalle (14-4-1) moves on to face top-seeded Orono in the state semifinals. The other Class AA semifinal will feature St. Cloud Tech against No. 2 seed Hill-Murray School. Both games will be played at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Nov. 1.

DeLaSalle had possession for most of the match's first few minutes. Its first potential chance to score came near the outside of the penalty box when a cross was broken up by the Trojans and eventually cleared.

Another closer scoring threat came shortly after a Islander header went high in the air and toward the goal, but Trojan goalkeeper Kaleb Knothe, who made many clutch saves throughout the Section 2AA playoffs, was right there to break it up.

Later on in the half, Worthington had its first chance to score when a free kick from senior defender Hugo Garcia landed just outside the box where Jonathan Banegas took it down the sideline and kicked it toward the right corner of the goal, but a diving save was made.

For the next several minutes of the first half, neither team had great chances to score.

But another scoring chance emerged for the Islanders with a free kick opportunity just outside of the box. The cross kick was met by the Trojan keeper Knothe on a leaping save. The ball bounced around before it was eventually cleared by junior defender Alex Galvez.

While DeLaSalle controlled possession for most of the early stages of the first half in Worthington's half of the field, the Trojans started to control possession more toward the end of the half. Those controlled possessions created scoring chances.

The first big chance to score for Worthington emerged when an Islander goal kick was headed by Christian Banegas near midfield and bounced inside the box in front of junior forward Carlos Castillo. His shot rolled past the DeLaSalle keeper but hit the left post and rolled out of bounds, resulting in another goal kick. Castillo got another chance off that goal kick and his shot sailed high, but hit the left post again. It was the second post he hit in a one-minute span.

From there, possession was split pretty evenly between the two schools. But a shot on goal for DeLaSalle came on a free kick just inside Worthington's half of the field that led to a shot that was saved by Knothe. A few minutes later, Knothe saved another shot on goal from Islander Oscar Prieto.

That was the last shot on goal from either side in the first half as the game remained deadlocked at 0 at the break.

Right away in the second half, Worthington had another narrow miss with a shot on goal. The Islander keeper made a leaping save and tapped the ball just over the net to keep the game scoreless. A couple of opportunities from DeLaSalle followed, one of which was saved by Knothe and another shortly after sailed high over the goal.

With under 30 minutes left in the second half, the Trojans had a couple of chances to get on the board.

The first came on a free kick deep in DeLaSalle's half of the field from senior Maqui Sandoval, but his shot was too high. The second came moments after on a corner kick left of the net from Jonathan Banegas, but the header from his corner kick didn't come close to the goal.

Another chance came later when a shot from senior midfielder Charles Saydee rolled just left of the goal.

With 17 minutes left in the match, DeLaSalle finally found the back of the net to break the scoreless tie when a pass found its way through to Juan Muellner Lindor in the middle of the penalty box. Muellner Lindor took an open shot that rolled just past Knothe and into the middle of the net to give DeLaSalle a 1-0 lead.

After that, the Trojans kept possession in the Islander half of the field for the majority of the second half, but couldn't generate many major scoring threats from it. The biggest came with under 10 minutes left when a header from Sandoval went just high of the net.

From there, DeLaSalle's defense continued to keep Worthington from leveling the game in the final minutes and that was all it took for the Islanders to preserve their 1-0 lead on the way to victory.

The Trojans' season ends with a 17-3 record and once again a loss in the quarterfinal stages of the State tournament.

DeLaSalle 0 1 — 1

Worthington 0 0 — 0