Florida Christian’s memorable run to the boys soccer state semifinals comes to abrupt end

It was all there for the Florida Christian boys soccer team.

A magical journey through the regional playoffs as a No. 6 seed leading all the way to the state final four was about to get even better.

The Patriots, a team that didn’t even finish .500 in the regular season and needed to win its district just to qualify for regionals, was less than 10 minutes away from upsetting No. 1 seed Melbourne Holy Trinity and locking up a berth in the state championship game.

And then it all fell apart.

Despite enjoying a man advantage after a Holy Trinity player was red carded with 16 minutes left in the game, Florida Christian could not hang on to a 1-0 lead, getting scored on twice in the last 10 minutes to drop a heartbreaking 2-1 decision in a Class 2A state semifinal on Thursday afternoon at Spec Martin Stadium.

In even more heartbreaking fashion, just when it looked like the Patriots would at least force overtime and still enjoy a man advantage, Holy Trinity scored the game-winning goal with just 25 seconds left in regulation.

The Tigers (19-0-1) advance to their first-ever state championship game and will take on Tallahassee Maclay for the title on Saturday at 4 p.m.

“As much as I’m hurting for these boys right now, there’s nothing but a proud feeling for what they’ve accomplished over these last few weeks,” Florida Christian coach Fernando Hernandez said. “It’s an extremely difficult moment right now for everyone. All of us will go through it together, feel it and learn from it going forward. There’s nothing to feel ashamed of or feel bad about. Everybody did their part, we just couldn’t quite finish it.”

After an non-descript, evenly played first half, Hernandez watched his team take that 1-0 lead when Alex Bennetot got to a loose ball down low on the left hand side and managed to squeeze a tight-window pass through two Holy Trinity defenders to teammate Cristian Garcia. Garcia found himself one-on-one with Holy Trinity keeper Chandler Draper and one-touched it past him into the bottom right corner of the net with 31:28 left in regulation.

Things got even better for the Patriots with just over 16 minutes left when Holy Trinity’s Kush Barochia drew a red card and subsequent ejection for a violent hard foul on Bennetot.

With a man advantage and a one goal lead, Patriot fans, a large and noisy contingent that made the four hour trip up, began to celebrate.

But any celebrating came to an abrupt halt with 9:25 left when the Tigers managed to tie the game. With Holy Trinity pushing everyone up in attempt to get the equalizer, Nathan Combs dropped a perfect pass from the right side in front of the net that Florida Christian keeper Adrian Bennetot could not get to and Evan Spreitzer headed into the top left corner of the net.

Now a little panicked and with the momentum gone, Florida Christian struggled offensively and Holy Trinity, despite being short-handed kept the pressure on. Just when it looked like the Patriots would get the game to overtime and possibly regroup came the final blow.

With the clock ticking and inside of 30 seconds, Jake Wells sent a wind-aided throw-in from the corner that started bouncing around loose in front of the net. Adrian Bennetot struggled to find the loose ball in traffic before Cooper Euziere went down low, reached out with his right leg and tapped the ball into the bottom right corner of the net.

“Once we got the man advantage, we were looking to play to the sides, looking to possess the ball,” Hernandez said. “But we got into a little bit of what I call hopeful soccer where the ball is just up in the air, nobody owns it, a lot of 50-50 ball that we just didn’t win and paid the price for it.”

Stunned Patriot players and coaches for that matter including Hernandez sat motionless on their bench for at least five minutes after the game was over, not moving and not saying a word.

“We were very confident and maybe we got too confident,” said Garcia about what changed after Barochia got the red card. “We started to get too relaxed and it wound up biting us in the neck. But no matter, as much as it hurts right now, we’re still so proud of what we did and how we got here. To come from where I was as a freshman when the program actually shut down to where we were today – I can’t be more proud of my teammates and what we accomplished.”

Hernandez added: “Lots of times when you’re inside of something, you’re not able to step outside and understand how big it is. I think once a few months pass by, maybe even a few years, we’ll all be able to really appreciate what an amazing season and run this was.”