AURORA – After suffering a road loss to St. Francis last season, Aurora Central aimed for redemption Thursday afternoon.

The Chargers, a team with just one senior, suffered tough losses last season due to a mostly underclassmen rotation.

Things have started to change.

The Chargers, even with all their youth, are a different team.

And that showed on a glorious, sunny afternoon without a hint of wind at Bob Stewart Field.

The Chargers scored two goals in the second half to post a 3-1 triumph over the Spartans in Chicago Catholic League White Division play.

Aurora Central’s Alan Acosta admitted last season’s embarrassing defeat to the Spartans pushed his team Thursday. The sophomore midfielder did his part, scoring the opener in the 11th minute.

“It was good after coming off last year when we lost 5-0 to them,” Acosta said. “It feels good to beat them. I think we could’ve played better, but we can focus on the next game.”

The Chargers (7-3-0, 1-1-0) also picked up goals by Christopher Incandela and Giovannie Gutierrez to wipe away any frustrations leftover from a 6-0 defeat to division foe DeLaSalle on Tuesday.

“It was a great team effort,” Aurora Central coach Nazareth Jean-Marie said. “I think it was little tough in the beginning, because they were pressing. 

“In the second half, we adjusted. As the game went on, the guys were keeping position with the ball, and our passing was better. We created chances.”

St. Francis (2-5-0, 1-1-0) played tough and had chances to equalize late in the match.

St. Francis coach Jim Winslow said it was a difficult loss.

“I’m very frustrated, because we had chances early. I thought we played well early,” Winslow said. “This is a hard place to play, because it’s a smaller field. Two years ago, when we played here, we had rain. 

“They have to play on it, too. They took advantage. We can’t make mistakes. Our keeper dropped one on the goal, the second one we didn’t cover back-post front and the third one we got caught on the wrong shoulder. That’s simple soccer stuff. You can’t make those mistakes.

“That’s the frustrating part. We skewed younger this year than I anticipated. We graduated three of our four starting defenders who were all-conference last year, then Cooper (Winslow’s son) up-top.”

The first few minutes of the league game was mainly dominated by the hosts. St. Francis goalie Nathan Magnuszewski rarely had a few seconds to take a break in the opening 12 minutes, recording three of his nine saves.

“The first 10-15 minutes of the game was a little bit rough,” Magnuszewski said. “I feel like we could’ve blocked more shots and did a better job on defense. It went downhill from there.”

The Spartans opened up the game with a shot that Aurora Central goalie Elias Perez saved for one of his seven stops.

From there, the home team took charge and nearly scored on back-to-back shots by Giovannie Gutierrez before finally notching a goal at the 29:13 mark.

Christopher Incandela attempted a long shot that bounced free off the keeper’s hands. Acosta cleaned it up with a tap-in for a 1-0 lead.

“The first goal, I got unlucky. It was a knuckleball, and I was in the wrong spot,” Magnuszewski said.

Acosta said his third goal of the season was good timing on his part, along with a bit of luck.

“I saw he put his head up and was going to shoot the ball but didn’t think he was going to drop it, but I was right there to tap it,” Acosta said.

One minute, 15 seconds later St. Francis tied the match. John Coco converted off a throw-in.

Aurora Central had four quality chances to add a second goal in the final 16 minutes of the half but came up empty.

After two missed chances in the first 11 minutes of the second half, the Chargers got back on the board with a goal by Incandela, the Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match. He scored off a cross from Diego Leon for a 2-1 lead with 23:29 remaining in the game.

“Diego ran down the line, beat his defender, and he made a good cross in,” Incandela said. “One of their centerbacks missed it, so I just ran in and shot it.

“We’re playing a lot better, with coach helping us and pushing us.”

Leading 2-1, the Chargers added an insurance goal, when Gutierrez took a long pass from Neil Mayer and drilled in a shot with 16:39 left.

Mayer said he saw an opening to get the ball to Gutierrez.

“I saw Geo making the run,” he said. “He’s one of our fastest players. I saw him and saw an opportunity to loft it. He was able to put a finish on it.”

Mayer added that it was a quality win for the Chargers.

“The big thing is we came from losing three games against very strong teams to a conference game we could win. We had to take advantage of this game,” Mayer said.

On the other side, Magnuszewski said St. Francis suffered from a few breakdowns.

“On the second goal, it was unlucky defense. Our defender was too high and he tapped in, same on the third goal,” Magnuszewski said. “Our overall problem is our defense is always too high. We have to do a better job communicating.

“The (personal) positives I saw were some okay saves and my distribution was pretty good, (but) not a good game for me.”

Winslow said his team is still experiencing some growing pains. He hopes they are solved before the start of the playoffs.

“Brady is learning, he will get there,” Winslow said. “Tisch played much better after getting so frustrated Tuesday night after missing some easy ones. He did a much better job tonight, he got in.

“It’s taken care of little things, but you have to do that. To their credit (Aurora Central), played hard and didn’t give us anything easy. They didn’t make the mistakes that we did.”

St. Francis senior defender Jonathan Yarusso agreed with his coach. Maybe it was symbolic that as Yarusso commented on the game Tom Petty’s song “I won’t back down” blared over the speakers.

“We didn’t get the result we wanted,” Yarusso said. “We have to clean up some things, and will be back on Saturday. We have all the pieces now. We have to finish the puzzle and make the beautiful picture.

“We can do that. I think we’re a couple of games away from finally putting it all together and hopefully making a run in the playoffs.”

St. Francis defender Ryan Callender also remained positive.

“We could’ve scored a lot of times but couldn’t figure out the last pass,” Callender said. “I feel like we could’ve figured out more passes in the midfield and helped out more in the back. We shouldn’t have let all three goals happen.”

Aurora Central ’s first-year coach said he was encouraged by how his players battled even though they missed several close shots.

“I think Alan was solid in the middle and Chris did a nice job with his finishing and in the middle and Neil played different positions, which was good. He had a few good passes,” Jean-Marie said.

Aurora Central ’s Nathan Diedrich returned after missing three games – all losses – following an injury. The Chargers welcomed back the steady senior defender.

“I thought we played much better in the second half of staying together and pinching our line,” Diedrich said. “They were hitting the ball straight to the middle, and we were on it all the time.”

Starting lineups
 
St. Francis
GK: Nathan Magnuszewski
D: Ryan Callender
D: Jonathan Yarusso
D: Luke Pounders
MF: Brady Hamman
MF: Luke Argamasilla
MF: Peter Williams
MF: Brody Jochum
MF: Nicolas Tisljar
F: John Coco
F: Junior Diaz

Aurora Central
GK: Elias Perez
D: Neil Mayer
D: Owen Nordenberg
D: Diego Leon
D: Connor Dineen
MF: Matthew VanDeman
MF: Leroy Arias
MF: Landen Diedrich
F: Christopher Incandela
F: Giovannie Gutierrez
F: Alan Acosta
 
Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match: Chrisopher Incandela, so., F, Aurora Central

 
Scoring summary

First half
AC: Acosta (Incandela), 11’
SF: Coco (unassisted), 13’
 
Second half
AC: Incandela (Leon), 57’
AC: Gutierrez (Mayer), 64’