Salesianum soccer Gianluca Maronni celebrates with is teammates after scoring a goal in the state championship, photo courtesy of Nick Halliday
The Salesianum boys soccer team won the state championship for the third consecutive year with a win over Cape Henlopen. The Sals were led by Senior Gianluca Maronni who had a hat trick in the 4-2 victory over the vikings.
Marroni scored the first goal of the game on a centering pass from Chase Esser in front of the net. Gianluca settled the pass and took a shot that went past the diving Cape goalkeeper Jake Hutchinson for a 1-0 lead.
With six minutes left to go in the half the Vikings tied the game up. Cape’s Brady Spiegel took a pass from Evan Burris down the sideline then made a move to send the defender past him. Spiegel settled the ball before taking a shot that rolled into the corner of the net. The goal concluded the scoring of the first half and sent the game tied at 1 into halftime.
After twelve minutes of play in the second half Salesianum broke the tie and took the lead back. Sals Tyler Cifa was taken down inside the scoring box which resulted in a penalty kick (PK) for him. Cifa slowly walked up to the ball to see if he could get Cape goalie Hutchinson to show which way he was going to move to block the shot. Cifa then struck the ball to the right side of the goal that hit the post, but the ball bounced right back out to Cifa who knocked the ball in the net.
The Sals then added two more goals both from Marroni to cap off his hat trick. The first of two goals came with fourteen minutes left in the second half when Cape tried to clear the ball out of the scoring box, but the ball ricocheted off a teammate and in front of the goal for Marroni to get a foot on it. The shot went off the hands of Hutchinson and into the back of the net. After a small talk between the referee’s who were checking to see if Marroni was offsides the Sals were then awarded the goal.
Two minutes later Marroni scored again. He took a pass in the center of the field from Esser again, made a move to his left then came back right kicking it into the bottom left corner of the net out of the reach of Hutchinson.
Cape did tack on a second goal in the last minute of the game. Cape’s Cardin Benjamin kicked it out of the corner and in front of the net as Jerzy Haines headed the ball into the back of the net. That goal brought the score to 4-2 which was the final score of the game.
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