OPRF Boys Soccer Goes Down Hard

The boys soccer team picked a bad time to have a bad match.

The top seed gave up three goals in the first half on the way to losing to second-seeded Morton by an eye-opening score of 4-0 in the Class 3A Hinsdale Central sectional championship Saturday afternoon.

“It was our worst-played game of the season,” OPRF coach Paul Wright said. “We buried ourselves. On the first goal we didn’t clear the ball. The second goal was just a poor decision to pass the ball back and gave them basically a free goal. And then the third goal we just weren’t thinking.

“It’s just really hard to come back from a three-goal deficit. We had some chances in the second half, but they were bunkered pretty well.

“It’s upsetting to have such a great season come to an end like this. I don’t think it reflects really the type of team we are.”

Morton (21-3-1) jumped ahead 1-0 in the 17th minute on a play that started with a free kick from midfield. OPRF (20-4-1) headed the ball away from the front of the net to the right side, but Morton’s Jesus Morales pounced on it and scored.

The Mustangs made it 2-0 in the 25th minute when Alonso Torres got behind OPRF’s defense, took a pass from Joel Salmeron and finished the transition breakaway with a score.

Torres struck again with 17 seconds left in the first half. He took another pass from Salmeron and buried the ball into the net to make it 3-0. That sent the Huskies into halftime shell-shocked.

OPRF senior Stephen Golz tried to fire up his team in a huddle before the start of the second half, but it turned out to be an increasingly frustrating 40 minutes for the Huskies. Their best chance to score came when Marcus Machado’s header flew just over the crossbar in the 50th minute.

Morton removed any doubt about the outcome when Salmeron took a pass from Morales and drilled a goal to extend the Mustangs’ lead to 4-0 in the 63rd minute.

“We just didn’t play our game today,” Golz said. “We got down 3-0 and didn’t bounce back.

“I thought we could come back at any moment. The fourth one kind of put a downer on our team. From then on a lot of heads dropped and unfortunately I think that kind of set the attitude for the rest of the game.”

Morton was determined to hold its lead in the second half after blowing a 2-0 advantage in its sectional semifinal against Lyons Township. The Mustangs fell behind in that one before prevailing 4-3 in double overtime.

“We were pretty confident, but we didn’t want to pull another LT,” Torres said about Morton’s mindset in the second half. “We were up 2-0 and in the second half we gave it up. We didn’t want to do the same today so we came out with the same intensity.”

Morton has ended OPRF's season in three of the last four years.

The Huskies, who were ranked No. 1 in the Chicago area earlier this season, were forced to find solace in the program’s first 20-win season.

“The seniors have done a great job setting the tone,” Wright said. “This is something in the program we’ve never done before, and we’ve really set the standard high, so hopefully we can carry that through these next few years.”

“It’s been an amazing four years,” Golz said. “I’m definitely going to miss it. I’m going to miss the guys on the team the most. It hasn’t hit me yet, but surely in the next 10 minutes it really will hit that the season’s over.

“This is a real downer. It’s real disappointing. I thought this was the year. It’s over.”