The Benet Academy Boys Soccer Program brought home the state title for the first time in many years! Check out their historic run in this Team Profile, presented by Molly Maids of the Aurora Naperville Area.
Their Season
As Benet Academy’s season began in the waning days of the summer sun, Coach Sean Wesley had a good feeling about the players he saw stepping on onto the field.
Coach Sean Wesley: “I think before we played, we knew we would be good but then maybe 2, 3 4 weeks in to the season after matching up against really good teams, and we kept getting results then we knew we had something really special and that’s kind of played out. We built on momentum. We’ve found some ways to get victories, found some ways to get results.”
The team started off 4-0 on the season, and then faced Naperville North the defending 3A state champions. The redwings lost that game 2-1 but they say that falling to such a good team gave them a lot of motivation.
That loss would be the only one on their season which is quite a feat seeing that their schedule was anything but easy.
The players also saw the chemistry and knew if they didn’t take advantage of it, they would be missing out on a huge opportunity.
And that’s exactly what happened. The Redwings finished their season 21-1-2 and capped it off by hoisting the 2A state championship trophy, defeating the defending state champions Crystal Lake South 2-0. The team also had 21 shut outs on the year and only allowed 4 goals against them. They also didn’t allow a goal throughout the entire state tournament. It’s pretty obviously that they earned that trophy.
Goali Vito Staniskis: “Elated, with the fans cheering and everything, it’s a lot of fun. It hasn’t set in yet but once it sets in, we will be really happy.”
And to think that it all started with a feeling when the weather was warm, and ended with a hot steak as the winter arrived.
Check out all the Benet Academy games in our Boys Sports Highlights!
