Schools

East Catholic Advances in State Tournament

East Catholic defeated Ellington in the first round of the Class M state tournament.

After playing the same game for two days, the Ellington Knights bowed out of the Class M state tournament Friday against the visiting East Catholic Eagles.

The game began on Thursday, but due to pouring rain and muddy and wet field conditions, the game was suspended with the Eagles leading 3-1 at the half. When the game resumed on Friday, No. 17 East Catholic picked up where it left off, scoring another three goals to take the 6-1 victory.

This split game was something new for everyone involved.

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“It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” Ellington coach Rich Dyjak said.

In the first half, No. 16 Ellington made a beautiful goal line save, but only a minute later, the Eagles got on the board. Only 40 seconds later, East Catholic scored again.

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A few minutes later, Emily Costanzo buried a penalty kick to get the Knights on the board. Just before the end of the half, the Eagles scored again.

East Catholic coach Liz Palmer knew that her team had some good momentum at halftime, and told her team to pick up where it left off. Her team listened.

“I just told the girls once they get off the bus, they have to be ready to play,” she said. “They came right out. I knew that they would be ready to play. They’ve worked really hard all year, I knew they would be ready to go and ready to play.”

East Catholic scored its fourth goal 13 seconds into the second half. Two more goals would follow.

The fourth goal was a huge one for the Eagles.

“I just told them that if we scored a goal it would kind of help us out a little bit and if they scored a goal, that they’d get right back in the game,” Palmer said. “We came out and we were able to put it in the net. Coming back after three goals is a hard thing to do.”

Dyjak made some adjustments for the second half and thought that his team would be able to stop the East Catholic momentum.

“The kids were fired up and ready to play,” he said. “I did not think we were going to get six goals scored on us. I can’t explain it.”

 had a few bad breaks in the week leading up to this game, including power outages and injuries. During the outage, the team was not able to play games or practice. Standout player Karlee Alves twisted an ankle at the end of the regular season and goalkeeper Kiara Stone reinjured her surgically repaired knee in the first half against East Catholic.

“I’m not going to make excuses, though,” Dyjak said. “I would say that even on a good day, East Catholic is probably a better team than us.”

Dyjak gives credit to the East Catholic team and powerhouse players Kelly McKenna and Annika Simmons.

“East Catholic is a really good team,” he said. “They’ve got a pro (in McKenna). She’s a tremendous player and Simmons is a very good player also.”

McKenna scored one goal and Simmons scored two. Hope Skahan, Lauren Martone, and Ashley Sullivan also scored for the Eagles.

Ellington ends the season at 9-5-1.

“I’ll take that over our record from last year,” Dyjak said. “We didn’t even make the tournament. It’s baby steps.”

East Catholic (11-5) will now travel to No. 1 Northwest Catholic (15-0-1) Saturday at 9:30 a.m. 


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