Michael Quatrano, who has become Notre Dame’s man of constant motion on the soccer field, had driven his teammates all season to reach the moment when they could stand alone with the District 7-A/AA trophy.
Friday night at Jim Eberle Field, Quatrano and the Irish came out firing on all cylinders in the 7-A/AA tournament championship match against rival Chattanooga Christian. The early pressure by Quatrano, Milan Card, Justin Hensley, Colin Sawyer and Jonathan Eagle set an intense tone for what became a 2-0 victory.
“This has been our goal since the first day of practice this spring,” Quatrano said. “We know CCS is a great team, and we made it our goal to get to the district final and beat them.”
Quatrano’s combination of speed, ball skill and raw power made him an unstoppable force from the match’s first whistle. He led a series of rushes that put the Chargers (10-4-2) on their heels, opening opportunities for his teammates who were relentless in keeping the pressure on CCS.
Card dealt the game’s first scoring blow, converting a pass from Hensley 28 minutes into the match on the team’s eighth shot. Seven minutes later, Quatrano took a perfect throw-in from Sawyer before working in space to blast home what stood as the final goal of the match.
“We played really well tonight from the start,” said Notre Dame coach Jim Schermerhorn. “This is basically the same team we had last year, but they have worked hard and they have really matured. We were able to keep up our work rate and our pace throughout the game. I thought we played pretty well for 80 minutes.”
After the Irish (14-4-3) outshot the Chargers by a 10-1 margin in the first half, CCS used rushes by Will Patton and Michael Phebus to blunt Notre Dame’s momentum and hold an advantage in second-half shots. However, Irish goalkeeper James Teal picked up all of his four saves in the second half, while the defensive work of Alex Darras, Grayson Bruce and Rhys Robertson helped to secure the shutout.
“I was proud of the way our guys came back in the second half,” said Chargers coach David Stanton. “We had more chances than they did in the second half, but their early pressure knocked us off our game. We just couldn’t keep up with it.”
The stellar defensive efforts of River Sarratt, Paul Fortmiller, Stephen Cone and Daniel Archer kept the Notre Dame offensive blitz scoreless for nearly 30 minutes into the match. Two of the point-blank shots by the Irish were kept out of the net on kick saves from the CCS backline.
“The last two seasons we have gotten knocked out and our season has ended in the district semifinals,” Schermerhorn said. “So one of our goals was to get to this game and to get to next week. It’s great to win and to keep playing.”
Contact Greg Thompson at sports@timesfreepress.com