Fajardo, Burns score twice each, help Dragons reach sectional semis

Defense holds down Manchester star Acosta

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

ARGOS — The Argos boys soccer team drew Manchester in their Class 1A, Sectional 36 quarterfinal, so Argos coach Todd VanDerWeele went to see Manchester play Northwestern Sept. 30 for scouting purposes.

After seeing Isaiah Acosta score four goals in an eventual 4-3 Squire win, VanDerWeele knew Acosta would have to be the focal point of the defensive game plan.

Argos did just that, holding Acosta and the rest of his teammates scoreless and pulling away in the second half for a 6-0 win at Eugene Snyder Field Tuesday.

Argos had an 11-3 advantage in shots on goal and a 5-3 edge in corner kicks. Angelo McMillen had three saves in goal for the shutout.

Argos improved to 13-4 and earned a meeting with North Miami in the semifinals at 5 p.m. Thursday. Argos is seeking back-to-back sectional titles and its 14th sectional title in the last 16 seasons.

Manchester, who dropped to Class 1A after a nine-year stay in Class 2A, finished 8-8-1.

Meanwhile, Yahir Fajardo and Zach Burns scored twice each, and Aiden Samuels and Alexander Binfet scored once each. Binfet’s goal came with five seconds left, and with the game already in a running clock per the IHSAA Mercy Rule, it turned out to be the last play of the game.

VanDerWeele said the game plan on Acosta would be to make him run laterally instead of north and south. 

“I was there for a half, and I saw him score two,” VanDerWeele said of his view of Acosta of the Northwestern-Manchester match. “He’s very fast. He’s quick and explosive. And I felt like we had to make him go sideways. So we tried to not let him beat us and just make him go sideways and then get the ball off his foot. … And we didn’t really talk about, quote-unquote, doubling him, but the pressure did come. We’d slow him down, and the pressure would come, and he would get off his foot, either make a mistake or try to pass to a guy, and we seemed top turn that around and get quite a few counters after that.”

Besides playing goalkeeper, McMillen’s other job was to communicate to defenders Carter Bauman and Joel Trump as to Acosta’s whereabouts.

“The backs and the keeper have got to be in tune and have got to be talking constantly to keep something from happening,” VanDerWeele said. “And the keeper comes into play because he can see more than, say, Carter or Joel. Carter and Joel can see a lot, but there’s still things they don’t see that Angelo can see, so their communication especially between those three – and I thought for most of the game that I could hear – it was probably the best we’ve had all year.”

Argos top scorer Kenyan Beldon did not score, but he had two early shots. One of them hit the left post, and the other hit the crossbar.

Even though neither went in, it seemingly sent a message that Argos was going to be able to generate offensive opportunities.

Fajardo broke through with 16:39 left in the half. Aiden Samuels sent a centering pass that Manchester freshman Fin Pyle intercepted, but his clearing try off his left foot went right to Fajardo, who blasted a low shot into the back left corner.

“We have a tendency at the beginning of games to just want to ease into games, and then our first halves look terrible,” VanDerWeele noted. “Tonight, we didn’t score in the first 10 minutes, but Beldon hit the post twice, and I really think, even though we didn’t score, sent a little bit of a message to Manchester like, oh my God, these guys are on the front foot attacking, so when Yoyo (Fajardo) scored, it really gave us a boost.”

Fajardo assisted on the second goal, floating a pass from near the goal line on the right side of the net and hitting Burns, who was unmarked. Burns volleyed the pass out of midair and floated it over goalkeeper Landon Jackson’s head.

Argos made it 3-0 on another Fajardo goal with 32:12 left. He took a pass from Burns, who drifted away from the goal line and sent a centering feed that deflected off a foot of a Manchester player. He outfought two Squires for the ball and drilled a shot that Jackson got a hand on but could not stop.

An unassisted goal from Burns made it 4-0 with 23:35 left. He kept a pass inbounds toward the left sideline and worked his way around two Squire defenders before thundering home a left-footed finish.

Samuels’ goal came on a scramble off a corner kick. Fajardo’s header hit the post, and Ayden VanDerWeele’s shot careened off a defender but right to Samuels, who finished with 10:25 left.

Binfet finished a long run to complete the scoring.

Argos was coming off a 3-1 win over Bethany Christian Saturday, their first over the Bruins in five years.

VanDerWeele was asked if the team gained any momentum from that game.

“Honestly, I think a little bit,” VanDerWeele said. “They got five (goals) against us last year. They’ve had a couple games where they really hammered us, and we didn’t play well in the first half, and then we came out, and that was probably our best half that we’ve played all year was that second half.

“But I do think that we carried that forward.”