LAKE ST. LOUIS – Brady Freeman gave his bicycle a test drive.
Early in the second half of Liberty’s district championship match against St. Dominic, the senior midfielder eyed an airborne ball and went airborne himself to execute a bicycle kick.
“I saw my player going through and tried to play it,” Freeman said. “I missed it, but I kind of manifested it.”
Moments later, Freeman’s idea became magical reality when he executed a similar maneuver in the box and provided Liberty with the only goal in a 1-0 victory over St. Dominic in the Class 4 District 4 championship game at Liberty High.
Liberty (21-2), which won its second district title in the last three seasons, advanced to face John Burroughs (17-5) in a Class 4 quarterfinal at 1 p.m. Saturday at John Burroughs High.
Ten minutes into a scoreless second half, both Freeman and senior Carson Nolan stood on either side of the ball as the Eagles readied for a free kick from 24 yards away.
Freeman jogged towards the penalty spot, and seconds later, Nolan launched a shot towards the goal that was blocked by a St. Dominic defender.
It caromed to senior Layton Dahl, who sent it back into the box where Freeman went horizontal, connected his airborne right foot to the ball and drilled it into the net.
“It was a surreal feeling,” Freeman said.
Led by Freeman and senior Turner Lively, Liberty had scored at least three goals in 19 of its last 20 games, but a stifling defensive effort by St. Dominic (18-9), led by center back Ethan Boeding, kept the Eagles off the scoreboard for the entirety of the first half.
It appeared that the Crusaders activated the scoreboard first when a free kick delivered by Lucas Eardley was deflected into the net by junior Jacob Kenkel, but the goal was disallowed due to an offside call.
“That was tough. In a big game like this, you want to grab the lead right away and we did everything we wanted up to that point,” St. Dominic coach Greg Koeller said.
St. Dominic senior Vince Bischof narrowly missed on the business end of another free kick, and a nifty back kick by junior Charlie Lafata sent Evan Phillips away on a prime scoring chance that sailed above the crossbar.
“There was a 20-minute span where I thought that was the worst we played in a while,” Liberty coach Tony Luedecke said. “They were putting a lot of pressure on us and we couldn’t get anything connected.”
But Liberty found a rhythm in the final minutes of the first half, and only the brilliance of St. Dominic goalkeeper Owen Wolf kept the game scoreless.
In a two-minute span, Wolf got his fingertips on a shot destined for the net after a dangerous Liberty throw-in. Then, he dove full-extension to tip a point-blank shot from junior Brody Marino over the frame, prompting immediate hugs and high-fives from his teammates.
After Liberty sophomore Corey Lynch pinged the underside of the crossbar on the resulting corner kick, the teams went to halftime tied, 0-0.
“I was a little worried, but we turned it on that last eight to 10 minutes and we started to create chances. Our long throws were dangerous, our corners were dangerous, and it finally just clicked,” Luedecke said.
St. Dominic opened the second half with the same energy it had to start the first, and junior Nicholas Martinez uncorked a blast that Liberty goalie Aiden Brown tipped over the crossbar.
But after Freeman scored his acrobatic goal, Liberty methodically muddled the Crusaders’ attack.
Led by defenders Dylan Handlan and Brody Marino, the Eagles pressured the ball incessantly and knocked it out-of-bounds frequently to force restarts.
“The second half, we just couldn’t get control of the ball. We couldn’t hold the ball long enough to create, and that’s a credit to them,” Koeller said. “Our game is possession and passing and we didn’t get into a good rhythm. The ball always seemed to be up in the air or out of bounds.”
Liberty played in just its third game decided by one goal in its previous 19 contests but seemed comfortable preserving its narrow lead over the final 30 minutes, including the squelching of three St. Dominic corner kick opportunities late in the contest.
“It was about energy, marking your guy and not letting them go,” senior Turner Lively said. “We feel that as long as we’re winning the 50-50 balls, they’re not going to score.”
And for Freeman, a senior captain, the training wheels are off for a Liberty team hoping to keep riding all the way to Soccer Park for the final four.
“I’m proud of what this team has put in this year. We’ve worked hard and we deserve to keep going,” he said.