Over the past several seasons, fans of the St. Dominic and Duchesne boys soccer teams have gotten a chance early in the season to see who’d come out on top.

Due to a rainstorm back in September, however, followers of the rivalry would have to cram all of their accumulated passion of an intense rivalry with a taut playoff atmosphere in Thursday’s Class 2 District 4 championship at St. Charles West’s Steve Stahl Stadium.

Both sides put on a good show, worthy of the rivalry dashed with postseason drama and fans got their money’s worth as a first half goal by St. Dominic junior midfielder Scott Stiffler that gave the Crusaders the 1-0 win.

"Every year, it’s a tough game between us and them," Stiffler said. "Pretty much, just everybody wants to win. We want to win, they want to win. I thought we came out strong and we came out on top."

Stiffler intercepted a Duchesne clearing pass and with 15 minutes, 47 seconds left in the game and sent a rocket toward the right corner of the Pioneers’ goal.

The ball ricocheted off Duchesne keeper Jake Becher’s hands and bounded into the net for the game’s only goal.

"I was it rolling out and I thought why not hit it?" Stiffler said. "It was a good shot, I mean, I put it on goal. (If it didn’t go in there could have been a) rebound for someone to follow up. I saw the goalie and thought he blocked it (to where) it was going wide then I see the net move. It was pretty exciting."

The goal from Stiffler’s lo shot proved to be no surprise to St. Dominic’s coach at all.

"He struck it pretty well," St. Dominic coach Greg Koeller said. "He’s got one of the best shots on the team. You couldn’t ask for a better shot at that moment. It was a bullet."

Though St. Dominic (20-5) held the better of play throughout the rest of the first half, the Crusaders failed to find the net again and the score remained 1-0 at intermission.

Then, the offensive worm turned as Duchesne (11-10-2) found its offensive attack over the final 40 minutes. While the Pioneers got the ball into position to score, the team could never get that final push to put the tying goal home.

"We played a lot better, yeah," Duchesne coach Dave Thurmer said. "We just made two mistakes on the same play against a great team and it was game over. We regrouped though and played a really strong second half, especially without one of our captains. We went from a 4-4-2 to a 3-5-2 and seemed to pick up play and be better organized."

The most two notable chances the Pioneers made on the St. Dominic goal in the second half came later in the second half.

The first happened with 10::59 left when Jacob Woltering tried to find Sean Hogan on a pass into the Dominic box but it proved to be a step too far ahead of Hogan.

"The penetrating pass was what was killing us," Thurmer said. "We got down there and we’d pass instead of shoot and that was the deal."

Duchesne’s last ditch effort came right as the final whistle was about to be blown. That’s where senior midfielder Nicholas Donley ripped a shot from the right side just wide of the left post.

St. Dominic will now move on to next Thursday’s Class 2 quarterfinals for a 6 p.m. match at the Anheuser Busch Center in Fenton with Westminster Christian Academy (15-4). The Wildcats defeated Clayton 4-0 Friday to win its district.

The winner of that game will return to AB for the Class 2 semifinals Nov. 20 and a shot at the Class 2 state title.

jfaasen@yourjournal.com