Joliet Catholic entered Wednesday’s boys soccer game against St. Patrick hoping to pull off an upset. After all, St. Patrick had been practically unstoppable since the start of East Suburban Catholic Conference play, while JCA was in the bottom half of the league standings.

While the Hilltoppers deserve credit for their fight in the second half, they were unable to derail the St. Patrick train.

The Shamrocks didn’t score in the second half, but they put up four goals in the first 40 minutes to take a 4-1 victory at Joliet Catholic’s campus. St. Patrick now clinches the runner-up spot in the conference at 7-1 and 9-9 overall.

Benet’s victory over Saint Viator means they’re the 2025 conference champions while the Shamrocks are runner-up, but given that the team started 2-5 and had a midseason three-game losing streak, they won’t complain too much.

“We had an eye on that Benet-Saint Viator game, but we knew we had to take care of business here,” coach Jonathan Clark said. “Unfortunately, we finish in second place, but our boys came out hard in the first half, took care of what they needed to take care of and got the win. We handled what was in our control.”

For Joliet Catholic (6-8-2), the roller coaster continues. Its conference record now sits at 2-4-1, leaving the team in sixth place ahead of Marist, Nazareth and Marian Catholic. With one regular season game remaining, there have been signs of progress, but much more will be needed if it wants to make some upsets in the postseason.

“We’ve really just been focusing on improving our finishing these last few weeks,” coach Tom Cranmer said. “I was really pleased with how we played in the second half. I think we even won the second half, but you’re not going to win many games when you allow a team to score two goals on two shot attempts to start, which is what we did today.”

Ivan Garcia opened up the scoring for St. Patrick four minutes in with a goal to give the Shamrocks the lead. Michael Zegarski added to the lead with a goal of his own seven minutes after that to stretch the lead to 2-0.

Some say a 2-0 lead is the worst lead in soccer. St. Patrick agreed as Garcia made it a brace for himself in the 30th minute to increase the edge to 3-0. Isaiah Gomez scored the fourth and final goal for St. Patrick two minutes after that, and the Shamrocks led 4-0 entering halftime.

Again, Joliet Catholic deserves a ton of credit for its second-half effort. It kept the Shamrocks off the scoreboard for the final 40 minutes and even managed to put one in the back of the net. Adan Verdin snuck one past the keeper for the Hilltoppers with 21:47 left to play to make the final score more respectable.

Joliet Catholic will visit Saint Viator on Saturday for the final regular-season game before playing Beecher on Oct. 21 to open postseason play.

St. Patrick, meanwhile, has wrapped up its regular season and must wait until Oct. 20 to play again. The first opponent will be Westinghouse, although Garcia said it doesn’t matter.

“I actually don’t remember who we’re playing,” he said. “All I know is we have to be disciplined. I think we’re working hard enough for it and we’re really good, especially on our back end, so we just have to keep going for it and we’ll be okay.”