Palmetto knocks off Jesuit

TAMPA — His tie blowing back behind his head, Dustin Dahlquist jogged toward Palmetto’s boys soccer team, which had congregated under the scoreboard shining down on Tampa Jesuit’s football stadium.

Sporting a wide smile, Dahlquist took a small leap and landed right in the middle of his players, who met their coach with a plethora of hugs and screams.

The Tigers have scored a number of impressive wins during their current four-year run, and Tuesday night’s was no exception. Palmetto knocked off perennial power Tampa Jesuit 4-1 in the Class 4A-Region 3 semifinals, sending the Tigers (19-2-2) into a regional championship game for the fourth consecutive season.

They will host Fort Myers — a 3-2 winner over Naples on penalty kicks — at 7 p.m. Friday at Harllee Stadium in an attempt to reach the Class 4A final four for the second consecutive season.

“It’s a great win,” said Dahlquist, whose Tigers had never defeated Jesuit. “Any time you can come up here and beat Jesuit. ... They’re such a good team. I’m proud of our effort, I’m proud of our guys — we didn’t give up.”

It was Jesuit (18-5-3) that controlled the game early, but it was Palmetto that caught the first break. It came just over 15 minutes after kickoff, when 20-yard boot from junior Brandon Waddy slid through the fingers of Jesuit goalie Alejandro Costas and rolled into the back of the net.

“It gave us rhythm, and it set a pace for us to play hard,” Waddy said.

It started a trend, too. Eleven minutes after Waddy’s goal, Edgar Campos took a free kick from about 30 yards out that glanced off the fingers of a leaping Costas and gave Palmetto a 2-0 lead.

But Waddy saved Palmetto’s biggest goal of all for the final moments of the half. Three minutes after a header by Brett Durrance sliced Jesuit’s deficit to 2-1 during the game’s 35th minute, Waddy took a free kick from the 31-yard line that skipped past Costas.

Just like that, Palmetto regained a two-goal lead — and the momentum.

“I don’t want to say we got lucky on some goals in the first half — they were decent shots,” Dahlquist said. “But their keeper dropped a couple of shots that went in the goal — I guess that’s soccer. We’ve lost some games like that, and we’ve won some games.

“We gave a good effort.”

Jesuit, which defeated Palmetto in a regional final in ’07, applied plenty of pressure after the break, taking seven shots. All, however, either sailed high or wide or bounced off the crossbar.

And when Palmetto freshman Pedro Calvillo scored the game’s final goal on yet another long shot — this one nearly 30 yards out during the game’s 80th minute — the celebration was on.

The players, spurred on by Dahlquist, sprinted to the other side of the field to cheer with the Palmetto fans that made the 45-minute trip up Interstate-275.

The coach, however, was quick to tell his charges that as sweet as Friday’s win was, three wins still stand between Palmetto and its ultimate goal — a state championship.

“We do a good job of forgetting about what’s in the past,” said goalie Brandon Tarpley, one of five players who has been a member of all four regional finalists. “We bring it up from time to time, and it kind of builds our self-esteem. ... And then we use that, and we go out and practice.”