INDIANAPOLIS
Greenwood boys soccer coach Dan Priscu couldn’t have asked for a better first 10 minutes.
The Woodmen held Roncalli scoreless and senior Jake Callow scored with 30:27 remaining.
“It’s all about mentality,” Priscu said. “After they scored, we were fragile.”
The host Royals followed with nine unanswered goals in a 9-1 romp over the Woodmen Tuesday night in a Class 3A sectional first-round game. Roncalli (10-6) will now face the Columbus North-Columbus East winner in a semifinal today. Whiteland and Franklin meet in the early semifinal at 5:30 p.m.
“They’ve overcome a lot of other mental obstacles and I’m proud of them overall,” Priscu said. “We have to get out of that quicksand mentality.”
The Royals led 6-1 at halftime.
“Offensively, it was tough going forward,” Priscu said. “At the beginning, we opened them up very well. When our mentality was positive, we were able to go with them toe to toe. It was once we let in three goals, that things dropped. We stopped believing in ourselves and stopped playing with positivity. That’s a well-run program, too, and they know how to take advantage of mistakes and they are never going to stop. That’s what we need to match going forward in the future.”
Priscu, in his second year as coach, said the Woodmen (8-9) have made progress since last season, when the team finished 6-10-1.
“It’s knowing what to do in certain situations,” said Priscu, whose team will lose several senior regulars to graduation. “It’s knowing what we can control and what we can’t control, that’s the biggest thing.”
Junior Eli Miller scored three of the first four goals for the Royals. It was his second game this season with three goals.
“The team realized it wasn’t going to be easy if we just fooled around when them, so we turned it on,” Miller said. “We started scoring quickly.”
Sophomore Andrew Curry and junior Isaac Gomez-Alejo each scored two goals and junior Ries Schilten had a goal for Roncalli, which also benefited from an own goal in the first half.
“They scared us there at the beginning,” Roncalli coach Maurice Schilten said. “But it was our wake-up call. When Eli led the way, we got going and took care of the business from there. The message at halftime is we are absolutely not going to give up another goal. We’ve got to have that focus going into (the semifinals). If you want to be a champion, you have to play like a champion every game.”
Roncalli was able to substitute freely in the second half.
“We had a chance to get everyone on the field, so that was fantastic for those boys,” Shilten said. “It’s been a long season for some of them. To be able to get time this late in this season is nice for all of them.”
