Some might have thought the chip of Timothy Christian’s Dylan Drye over the head of De La Salle goalkeeper Jahir Anaya in the eighth minute of the Class 2A De La Salle Sectional Final A on Oct. 31 was destined to give the Trojans an early lead.
There was one person, however, who thought differently.
In helping the Meteors to a 4-0 victory, Christopher Dingle made the defensive play of the match. Sprinting full speed toward the net, Dingle somehow managed to get his foot to the ball and prevent it from crossing the goal line. For his efforts, the Meteor defender ended up in the back of the net while the ball remained in play.
“I saw my keeper coming out and I just had my second instincts,” Dingle said. “I trusted myself to keep running. I saw it go over him and I just hit it out.
“It was right there and I felt the people coming behind me. I was like, ‘I have to get it out and keep going.’ I knew it wasn’t going in because I was going there.”
De La Salle (22-3-1) advanced to the Class 2A Lyons Supersectional on Nov. 3 against Fenwick. The Friars defeated St. Patrick 2-1 in the De La Salle Sectional Final B on Oct. 31.
Christian Flores scored the first goal of the match in the 56th minute. After teammate Anthony Vega was fouled in the box after a quality feed from Flores, De La Salle was awarded a penalty kick. Flores stepped to the spot and calmly beat Timothy Christian goalkeeper Dylan Barr with a well-struck shot inside the post to Barr’s right.
“(Losing in the Class 2A state final last season) left a bad taste in our mouths,” Flores said. “… We have to get it back because we’re trying to win it all. The journey still continues.”
In the 60th minute, De La Salle went up 2-0 as Alex Panduro scored his 101st career goal on a crossing pass from Flores on the right wing.
“This means everything to us,” Panduro said. “In the beginning of the game, we started with a low intensity. But in the second half, we came in and we gave it our all.”
Panduro proved his proficiency in passing in the 71st minute as his ball into the box from the right wing found the foot of Vega, whose goal gave the Meteors a 3-0 margin.
De La Salle concluded the scoring in the 78th minute. On a penalty kick, Kevin Gates’ initial shot was stopped by Barr, but Gates found the back of the net on the rebound for a 4-0 lead.
Anaya made five saves to earn the shutout.
“At halftime, we talked about how since they were giving us space, we needed to expose them on the outside,” De La Salle coach Francisco Martinez said. “We wanted to spread them out and the boys were able to listen to that.
“What the boys did was go down the line and they were able to cross the ball and that created opportunities for us. When we started spreading them out, that helped a lot. They were sitting back and waiting to counterattack, so we tried taking advantage of that.”