When he was in middle school, Caiden Stoneburner wasn’t even playing soccer.
So naturally, when the Center Grove boys were fighting for their postseason lives in sectional penalty-kick shootouts against Roncalli and Southport, that’s exactly who coach Jameson McLaughlin was banking on.
Despite his relative lack of experience, Stoneburner rose to the occasion. He has been a rock for the Trojans all season long, but never more so than in the postseason. He stopped a pair of penalty kicks in a semifinal win over Roncalli, then made several huge saves in the championship match, including the decisive shootout stop, to help lead Center Grove past Southport.
"If we don’t have him, we lose," McLaughlin said after Saturday’s title win over the Cardinals. "He made a save in the first half that was in, with his fingertips; he made a save down here (in overtime) that was in. I don’t know how he saved it, but if we don’t have Stoneburner today, we lose. If we don’t have Stoneburner against Roncalli, we probably lose.
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"The kid has only played soccer for two years now; he had sat out for like three or four. For him to come back and play like that is insane."
So insane that Stoneburner has a hard time fully explaining it himself.
About two and a half minutes into the first overtime period of the sectional final, a Southport player got off a hard shot from about 12 yards out that left Stoneburner with almost no time to react — but he still reacted in time, making his eighth and perhaps biggest save of the night.
How does he do it?
"I just try to do the best I can on those," he said. "I try to think of where it’s going to go, and I just go that way."
The same strategy paid dividends in the shootout. After the first five rounds of PKs against the Cardinals passed without anybody failing to score, Stoneburner stepped up in the first round of sudden death, diving to knock Bawi Zung Lian’s shot wide of the goalpost.
Felipe Kroll followed with the clinching goal.
"I had full confidence in him," Center Grove senior Aaron McDaniel said. "We saw how he was Wednesday against Roncalli, (and) he saved the last one, which was huge. That made us all happy."
On Saturday, Stoneburner and the Trojans will take on sixth-ranked Castle in the semifinal round of the Class 3A Seymour Regional, and their season will again be on the line.
Pressure situations bring out the best in pressure players, though, and that’s exactly what McLaughlin has seen from his netminder this postseason.
There’s no reason to think that Stoneburner wouldn’t deliver again.
"The kid is as cool as it comes," McLaughlin said.
It seemed that Stoneburner still hadn’t fully processed the moment when asked about his exploits after the sectional final, but he certainly wasn’t willing to take all of the credit for himself.
When asked how he kept his cool throughout the shootout, he deflected the praise as deftly as he had so many Southport shot attempts.
"Those guys over there, they kept me calm the whole time, kept telling me I’ve got it," Stoneburner said of his teammates. "They kept me in it, kept me positive."
And in turn, Stoneburner has helped keep the Trojans in the hunt for a state championship.
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Class 3A Seymour Sectional
Saturday
Terre Haute South (11-5-2) vs. Columbus East (9-2-7), 10 a.m.
Castle (14-2-1) vs. Center Grove (9-4-4), noon
Championship, 7 p.m.
Admission: $7 per person
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Class 3A Seymour Regional
Players to watch: Castle — Ryker Kotmel, Jackson Mitchell, Randall Pruitt, Nigel Stoltz; Center Grove — Ely Detty, Aidan Kinstler, Aaron McDaniel, Landen Montfort, Caiden Stoneburner; Columbus East — Pete Coriden, Logan Cline, Chris Quisenberry, Alejandro Saldivar; Terre Haute South — Adam Andres, Ashton Hayne, Kade Kline
Head to head: Columbus East lost at Center Grove, 5-1, on Aug. 22 and tied at Castle, 0-0, on Sept. 19
What to look for: Sixth-ranked Castle has put up the most impressive numbers, racking up almost 90 goals on the season, but those are skewed somewhat by three games of 12 or more goals against inferior competition. The Knights haven’t faced a current top-20 team yet this season. The Trojans haven’t shown the same type of dominance on the stat sheet, but they’re far more battle-tested, especially after a pair of penalty-kick shootouts in the sectional. Might that play in their favor in a tight match?
Should Center Grove survive the semifinal, it would be a heavy favorite against either of the other teams in the title match. The Trojans haven’t won a regional since 2015, when they continued on to win the 2A state championship.
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