United's Josh Hawkins celebrates the Eagles' first goal on Saturday. (Photo by Michael Burich)

SALEM — United sophomore Jude Andrea lined up for a potential go-ahead penalty kick with 7:11 left in the Div. V boys soccer district final against Badger on Saturday at Sebo Stadium could send the 16th seeded Eagles into its third regional tournament in five years.

The sixth seeded Badgers had Trenton Lowe in goal anxiously awaiting the kick and he made the save, but as the ball sputtered loose on the line for a split second Andrea had other plans.

“I was not thinking I was going to get to that (rebound),” Andrea said. “But there was nothing stopping me from getting to that.”

Lowe had actually paused right after making the initial save and he gave the Eagle enough time to put in the game-winner in the 2-1 victory.

“Jude tried to get it to the side and the big keeper got his mitts on it,” United coach Curtis Jones said. “He didn’t save it clean and we followed it up. Now if this was a penalty shootout that initial save would have been it. When it’s regulation that ball is live and I don’t know if the keeper thought the ball was dead or not. We had noticed a couple times after initial saves he was a little bit slower getting on the loose ball. That’s what happened on the penalty.”

United, which started the season 0-4, moved to 10-7-2 and its second straight trip to the regional. The Golden Eagles are set to play Maumee Valley Country Day (16-2-1) at 7 p.m. on Wednesday at Sandusky Perkins High School in the regional semifinal. The Hawks were the top seed in the Northwest region.

It has been quite the journey for the Golden Eagles to get here.

“One of our starting outside mids Abram Ceresna broke his arm in the alumni game before the season started,” Jones said. “He’s just coming back to us now. Two of our defenders were hurt and we didn’t back down on the schedule. Six of our opponents played in district championship games. With us trying to figure out everything with the injuries we had we went through a rough stretch. Even in those losses we were competitive for at least one half.”

Badger’s first game of the season was a 7-3 win over the Golden Eagles, but the Eagles held a 3-1 advantage in that one at the half.

This time the game was a much more defensive affair with Eagle senior Josh Hawkins scoring the first goal at the 27:47 mark of the first half.

“I got the through ball to me and I just had to get the touch around him to beat him,” Hawkins said.

The lanky but fast forward was the main generator of the Eagles’ chances as he is the team’s leading scorer this season with 29 goals. This output came after not playing at all as a junior.

Hawkins appeared exhausted at the end of the game, but set up the penalty kick after getting fouled in the box.

“I was going up for a header and I got hit in the eye,” Hawkins said. “I had to do whatever to get the win.”

Badger’s midfield of Jack Harnett, Dax Harnett and Lewis Flowers were bigger than your average soccer players and had a lot of heft to their shots. Eagle goalkeeper Seth Blake was able to keep a clean sheet until Dax Harnett scored the tying goal with 23:30 left in the game.

“They’re one those schools that don’t have football so anybody that is athletic at the school is going to play soccer,” Jones said. “So they always have big, fast, physical guys and it’s always a challenge. Dax Harnett had a phenomenal career for them and he would have been player of the year last year if it wasn’t for (United’s) Maddox Andrea.”

Dax Harnett had 38 goals on the season.

United went 17-3 last season and lost quite a bit of core players — including Eagle all-time leading scorer Maddox Andrea — to graduation, so it knew everything wasn’t going to gel right away. Jones said he knew the team had the potential but just needed time to put it all together.

The players agreed.

“It took a lot dedication and putting in the extra hours as a team,” Jude Andrea said. “It started out hard with the schedule but we worked through it as a team. Every practice we worked our butts off.”

Notes

¯ United’s fans didn’t have to make a long trip, so about 3/4ths of the Sebo Stadium visitor’s side was filled with vocal Eagle supporters. Badger had a handful of fans on the home side.

¯ United is no stranger to having to go play a Northwestern Ohio team. The 2022 team played Toledo Ottawa Hills at Sandusky Perkins in a regional semifinal. Jones said he knew coming in that winning this district would mean having to travel a long way in the regional, but he felt it gave the Eagles the best chance to get a district title. Crestview’s 2021 state finalist team also had to go that route in the state semifinals against Ottawa Hills at Port Clinton.