SEYMOUR — Before Saturday, most of Columbus East’s boys soccer season has consisted of one 80-minute game on a given day.
To win a regional title on Saturday, the Class 3A No. 5 Olympians not only had to play two such games, they had to play 14 extra minutes to claim the first.
But the grind was well worth it for East. The Olympians beat Bloomington South 1-0 in overtime in the afternoon semifinal at Seymour, then held off Southport 2-1 in the final to capture their first regional title since 2005 and advance to the final four for the first time in school history.
“Shout out to (assistant) coach Buster (Copas) for all the work he does with us in the weight room, on the field, warmups, cooldowns,” senior midfielder Eric Stiles said. “He does everything for us with our fitness, and that’s what made a difference this game. We were able to keep up the whole time.”
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East (17-0-3) moves on to a semistate matchup against top-ranked Zionsville on Saturday at either Seymour or Evansville North. The time and location will be determined today by the IHSAA.
“It’s something we’ve been building for for a long time,” East head coach Brad Barber said. “The players deserve all the credit. They’re class acts on and off the soccer pitch, and to come out the second game, we knew it wouldn’t be a pretty game, but we would show the grit and passion it takes to play Columbus East soccer and got the job done.”
The Olympians got on the board against Southport in the 32nd minute. Chris Quisenberry took a pass from Ben Romig and slid one past Cardinal goalkeeper Arohn Mantun.
Quisenberry struck again in the 45th minute. Mantun came out to play a ball from Logan Cline and whiffed on it, giving Quisenberry an empty net to give East a 2-0 lead.
“We have great team chemistry,” Quisenberry said. “They always motivate me to get better and everything, and they just played spectacular tonight. I couldn’t have asked for a better team, and they really put it on a platter for me. I just had to do my job for them.”
Southport cut into the lead in the 52nd minute on a goal by Carlos Herrera. The Cardinals finished with a 19-8 shot advantage, putting eight shots on goal to the Olympians’s four.
But East keeper Zach Roberts, who recorded seven saves, turned away all susequent Cardinal chances.
“We had space to attack, and our boys executed that very well,” Barber said. “Southport is a very good team, as well as Bloomington South. To beat both back to back on the same day, I couldn’t be prouder of the boys from the standopint of the hard work they put in.”
In the semifinal, East and Bloomington South played through 80 scoreless minutes of regulation. The Olympians broke through in the third minute of overtime when Ben Romig ran into a ball after Kevin Sanchez had headed a corner kick off the crossbar.
“It went over my head, and I saw Kevin go,” Romig said. “I thought he was going to score, but it ended up hitting the crossbar. So like our coach always says, I just ran through the ball to hopefully end it in the goal, and I scored.”
Quisenberry took the corner kick on a set piece that the Olympians were using for the first time.
“We were spending a lot of time working on set pieces, and that paid big dividends today,” Barber said. “We had not tried that corner kick in a game. We were saving it for this very moment, and the first time we tried it, we scored on it, so you have to give the boys a lot of credit to being able to execute it.”
From there, East held the Panthers without a shot the rest of that 7-minute overtime period and in the second 7-minute overtime period to advance to the final.
“It was very tiring at the end, especially going through an extra 14 minutes of just full-out running and sprinting,” Romig said. “But we eventually got it done.”
The Olympians outshot Bloomington South 17-7, putting seven shots on goal to four for the Panthers. Roberts posted four saves.
East had beaten Bloomington South 3-1 during the regular season.
“They’re a quality program, and to beat them twice in one year says a lot about where Columbus East is,” Barber said.
