By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
The Bishop LeBlond boys' soccer team didn't know it when the match started, but they would only get one half to try and beat Benton.
One half is all they needed.
Dodging rain drops and thunder, and riding out a pair of weather delays, LeBlond scored two goals in the final 14 minutes of the first half to win a rain-shortened, 2-0 match against Benton in the city round robin at Eagle Stadium Monday.
The match was first stopped with 20:12 left in the first half. After a short, roughly five-minute delay, play resumed, but was stopped again with 14:33 on the clock. After a 25-minute delay, LeBlond wasted no time once they got back on the pitch.
Less than a minute-and-a-half after play resumed, senior Adan Seiter scored on a short-range goal after his first attempt bounced off of at least one Benton defender in the box
The Eagles went up 2-0 about eight minutes later. Seiter threw the ball inbounds on the Benton side of the pitch, and he found an open Davis Jungbluth on the wing, who scored from the left side with 5:04 left until halftime.
"I think we played pretty good," Seiter said. "We could have finished a lot better, but we had possession for most of the game. Like 75-25 (percent). If we just finish better, that game's over a lot sooner."
Once the game hit halftime at around 5:45 p.m., a severe thunderstorm briefly popped up over St. Joseph, as rain drops and thunder persisted. The decision was made to call the game at half, giving LeBlond the win.
Central and Lafayette was the second scheduled game, which started just after its scheduled time of 6:30 p.m. Under mainly sunny skies, the Irish and Indians played the full 80 minutes.
After Lafayette took a 1-0 lead in the first two minutes, Central scored six unanswered goals on their way to a 6-1 victory.
Central got six goals from six different players Monday. Bryan Vicente-Castillo, Domingo Escobar-Lucas, Noah Colgan, Nanh Kyaw, Colton DePietro and Alex Escobar-Lucas all found the back of the net in the Indians' season opener.
After being knotted at 1-1 for more than 25 minutes of the first half, Central took its first lead with 3:44 left before halftime.
"It was honestly just about fixing the little things," Central head coach Craig Vulgamott said. "First 20 minutes of that game, we started out and just...every little thing we could do wrong, we did wrong. So, it was really about getting them in the mindset of coming back, doing the little things and building from there."
Central had 17 shots-on-goal, compared to just four by Lafayette. Irish keeper Carter Hewitt was busy throughout the match, managing 14 total saves.
Central and LeBlond will play in the second day of the round robin on Tuesday night at 6:30 at Lafayette High School. That'll be preceded by Lafayette and Benton at 4:30.
The round robin concludes Thursday at Benton. Central and Benton play Thursday at 4:30, followed by LeBlond and Lafayette at 6:30.
You can follow Tommy on Twitter @TommyKFEQ and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.