Totino-Grace Eagles Prove their #1 Seeding

Totino-Grace 3-0 St. Louis Park

Eagles believe getting the first goal helps to motivate them to score more.

The second game of the night at Hopkins HS saw the #1 seeded Totino-Grace Eagles (17-3-0) take on the St. Louis Park Orioles (12-8-1). The Orioles played in the final of last year’s championship losing to Osseo.

The first half saw action on both sides with St. Louis Park packing the midfield with 5 players while Totino-Grace tried to play over the midfield and beat St. Louis Park’s offside trap.

“They have 5 guys in the midfield and I think a lot of teams struggle with being outnumbered,” said Totino-Grace head coach Bill Vance. “We prepared not to win all the balls at midfield but we wanted to get through them quickly and I think in the second half we did that better. I think our forwards were faster than their outside backs.”

10 minutes into the match saw  Orioles freshman Aaron Stern put a half-volley shot on goal from a corner kick which forced a drop save by T-G keeper Ryan Onwukwe. “That kept us in the game,” said Totino-Grace head coach Bill Vance. “If that had gone in it would have changed the momentum.”

At 31:38 the Eagles broke the scoring drought. Clay Zimmerman played a nicely weighted ball down the left touch line to a sprinting Jon Ebert who was unmarked. He took a few touches before curling an early cross around the right defender and into the path of Joshua DeMarais. The forward who was making a run down the middle of the field made contact with the ball just before the Orioles keeper Nick Gaitan-Gaitan did. DeMarais took a touch and popped the ball over the St. Louis Park keeper. The ball bounced with Oriole defenders in pursuit but they weren’t able to catch up to the ball as it bounced into the net putting Totino-Grace up 1-0.

“I thought I played it too far ahead,” said midfielder Jon Ebert who had 2 assists on the night. “He seemed to just get there and then it ricocheted off the keeper.”

With 23 minutes left in the second half, Totino-Grace looked to have scored a goal but it was called off and a corner kick was given to T-G instead. The corner was taken by midfielder Paul Yonga who went far post to Amrut Dabade. The junior midfielder rose high above the crowd of players and nodded the ball back in the direction it came from to the far corner of the net.  Dabade’s header beat several defenders as well as St. Louis Park keeper Gaitan-Gaitan.

The first half came to a close with St. Louis Park oushooting Totino-Grace 8-4.

With 9 minutes left, the Eagles sealed the deal with a goal from freshman Ryan Herold. The assist and his second of the night went to Jon Ebert. Ebert headed the ball into  the top of the box where Herold calmly turned the ball, fired and scored on the Orioles goal.

T-G Midfielder Paul Yonga said that even though the Eagles hadn’t played their best game in the first half, scoring first was important. “Every game we lost this year we went down first, so to get that early goal is really important and it motivates us to score more goals.”

Ebert agreed with Yonga, “That really helped to jump start us. As soon as we get that first one it pumps us up and helps to keep it rolling.”