In the 56th minute Saturday, Mendota senior Johan Cortez corralled a long pass from Angel Orozco.

Then he fired a shot into the lower left corner of the net.

From there, the floodgates opened.

The No. 1-seeded Trojans scored three more goals over the next 3:51 on the way to a 4-0 victory over No. 6 Schaumburg Christian to win the Class 1A Mendota Regional.

“We came out kind of slow,” Cortez said. “It took the whole first half to really get into the game, but we started the second half coming out a little more intense. Once I got that first goal, I think everything just opened up from there.”

The win gave the Trojans their seventh consecutive regional championship.

“It’s awesome,” Mendota coach Nick Meyers said. “We talked about it the other day at practice. If you look around, even a team like Quincy Notre Dame hasn’t won the last seven. I told them for a public school to win seven in a row is a cool thing and it’s something we want to keep going. We talked about filling our banner as much as volleyball and basketball. We want to get a second one because we have so many up there.

“Now it’s gotten to the point where these are still great, but these are stepping stones to where we ultimately want to go in the postseason.”

The next step is the Indian Creek Sectional in Waterman where Mendota will face a different group of opponents than it has in recent postseasons when the Trojans were sent south for the sectional.

Mendota will face Genoa-Kingston in a semifinal at 7 p.m. Wednesday. The Cogs beat Winnebago 1-0 in overtime in the Rockford Christian Regional final.

The other semifinal is between Byron and Harvest Westminster Christian.

“It’ll be exciting for us because we usually face a lot of the same opponents, but now we’re facing someone new,” Cortez said. “It’s going to new challenge against new teams. We don’t really know how they play. It’s going to be good for us to play different teams and adjust from there.

“We expect the games to be a lot tougher than it was today. We know we need to come out way better than we did today in order to win those games and advance. Hopefully, we should be able to pull off the two wins.”

On Saturday, the Trojans controlled possession on the Conquerors half of the field and put six shots on goal but couldn’t finish.

In the second half, Cortez said Mendota changed up its attack.

“We were trying to focus a lot more on going down the wings because they were packing a lot down the middle and we were struggling going down the middle,” Cortez said. “We tried to open up to the wing more and get more crosses and that’s how I got the first goal, Angel Orozco hit the long ball to me and I was able to put it in with a great first touch.”

Issac Diaz scored with 22:02 left when he fired a shot from just outside the box that slipped past the keeper. He scored a second goal when he dribbled to the right and kicked a shot that grazed the left post and went in.

Cortez finished the barrage with 20:12 left in the game when he finished off a cross from Sebastian Carlos.

“I think the other team was forced to open up more,” Cortez said. “They needed to come back. They didn’t want to lose. So I think it opened more gaps in the defense and then we were able to pass more through the middle. Once we ut the second and third ones in, they kind of fell down a little bit and we we got up.”

The Trojans, who placed third in Class 1A last season, have won their last three regional finals by a combined score of 14-0. Mendota has won five of the seven regionals during its streak by four goals or more.

“I think it means a lot for everyone in Mendota to do this because it’s not easy to do,” Cortez said. “Some years we win with pretty big scores like 4-0, 5-0, 6-0, but realistically, it’s not easy to do for any team. To win seven in a row, I think this shows Mendota has a great program and hopefully they can keep it up in the future.”