Published Tuesday
May 17, 2005
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
Pat Dingeldine was set up for
redemption and got it.
A year after missing a point-blank
shot at match's end in Lincoln East's 1-0 loss to rival Lincoln Southeast in
the Class A semifinal, the senior ended Monday night's rematch with the winning
kick in a shootout for a 1-0 Spartans victory.
"Tonight, I said, 'Pat,
you're my No. 5 shooter and you're not going to miss. You're going to get the
chance and you're going to finish this game,'" East coach Jeff Hoham said.
"I had a great feeling about this. And he said, 'Coach, I'll make it.'
"It was like a bad 'Hoosiers'
rerun. I thought I had Jimmy Chitwood on the sidelines."
Lincoln East was perfect
in the shootout, winning 5-4. Its sophomore goalkeeper, Anthony Reichwaldt,
made the save on Southeast's second shooter, Ryan Zweiner.
The No. 2 Spartans (14-2), who
play in Wednesday night's 8:15 final at Creighton's Morrison Stadium, completed
a season sweep of Southeast. They won in the regular season 2-1 in overtime.
"I feel really bad for the
Southeast seniors tonight, because this was a game nobody wanted to lose,"
Hoham said. "At the same time, I feel real good for our kids, especially
the senior class."
Dingeldine, who's played two years
for East after transferring from Lincoln Northeast, said he was waiting for the
moment.
"This is the game we wanted
the most, Southeast in the semifinals," said Dingeldine, who said the
Spartans got fired up over comments made Saturday by Knights' goalkeeper John
Bradford.
"Southeast did an excellent
job. It was a battle from beginning to end."
Hoham put trust in two sophomores,
left-footed Devin Jamshidi and Joe Baker, to take shootout kicks.
"Devin had never stepped on
the field," Hoham said. "But I told him all year that he's money and
that it comes down to a shootout, we're going to put you in there. I think it
made it hard for the keeper because he's thinking right-foot, right-foot and we
have a left-foot here."
Lincoln East
(14-2).........................0 0 0 0 1-1
Lincoln SE
(14-4).........................0 0 0 0 0-0
€ Goals: 1, E, shootout win (5-4).
€ Shootout kicks: E, Jacob Rocke,
Devin Jamshidi, Quin Kilgore, Joe Baker, Pat Dingeldine. SE, Josh Arter, Luke
Bellows, Blake Neben, Nick Powers.
OMAHA‹ Perhaps, simply, it was Pat
Dingledine's turn. The Lincoln Southeast boys soccer team played a fine game
Monday night at Creighton's Morrison Stadium. The Knights played the game just
as skillfully as Lincoln East and had the same number of shots on goal and all
that stuff.
Yet, it was East players jumping
into their student section to crowd surf and celebrate a 1-0 shootout win. It
was East and not Southeast that advanced to the state championship match against Omaha Creighton Prep on
Wednesday night.
And maybe it came out that way
just because it was Dingledine's turn.
See, last year these two teams met
in a state semifinal and Southeast won by a goal. In that game, Dingledine had
a wide-open shot in the Knights' penalty box with 11 seconds left that could
have tied it. He blasted it over the goal.
This year, once again, Dingledine
was given a chance to be a hero. This time he made it.
"Tonight, I said, ŒPat,
you're my No. 5 shooter and we're not going to miss. You're going to get the
chance and you're going to finish this game. I have a great feeling about
this'," said East coach Jeff Hoham. "He said, ŒCoach, I'll make it.'
It was like a bad ŒHoosiers' rerun. I thought I had Jimmy Chitwood on my
sideline."
Dingledine put the ball between
the outstretched hands of Southeast goaltender John Bradford and the near post
to give East a 5-4 victory in the shootout.
"It's the way it is,"
said Southeast coach Linda Wilson. "It's just the way it is."
Dingledine said he was thinking
about last year's shot as he approached the ball to face Bradford on Monday.
"I wanted this game more than
anything," the senior said. "It's absolutely just an incredible
feeling to come out and beat Southeast in the semis."
The only difference in the
shootout came when East sophomore goalkeeper Anthony Reichwaldt made a diving
save against Southeast's second shooter.
It wasn't so much a bad shot from
the Knights' Ryan Zwiener. The save was just better.
"I think I speak for most
coaches when I say that you just don't want a game of this magnitude to come
down to a shootout. But when it does, I think that mental toughness factor pays
off," Hoham said.
Hoham used what some might find a
strange lineup of shooters. His top two goal scorers, A.J. Dingledine and Mike
Johnson, weren't among his five.
Yet left-footed junior Devin
Jamshidi, who has rarely played this year, shot second.
"Devin had never stepped on
the field, but I told him all year, ŒYou're money, bud, and if it comes down to
a shootout we're going to put you in there'," Hoham said.
It came down to a shootout only
after 100 minutes of scoreless soccer in which the shots were even at 11.
Several hefty shots were taken at
the net, but everything seemed to come from outside the box because of great
defense.
"There really wasn't a loser
on the field," said Hoham, who will coach in his third state final in four
years. "I feel bad for their seniors. That's a great group of young
men."
Wilson's voice cracked with
emotion when she spoke of her 15 seniors. Most of them were on the team last
year when the Knights made the
state final.
"It's hard to say goodbye to
them," Wilson said. "I think a lot of these guys."
The Knights ended their season
14-4.
The Spartans, meanwhile, will take
a 14-2 record into the final against a Prep team they defeated 3-1 less than
two weeks ago in a district final.
Hoham said making it to this game
has been the main thing his kids have thought about since the first day of
practice.
"We didn't put it on a
T-shirt. We didn't put it on a slogan or make a bumper sticker," Hoham
said. "We just said, ŒIt's going to take a lot of things to happen for us to
get where we need to be.'
"I don't know, sometimes things just have a way of working out, like when Pat buried that last shot. I just stayed away and looked straight up because it was meant to be tonight."