Mikey Roberts, Justin Hecimovich and Arnulfo Marquez score two goals apiece to lead Chesterton past visiting Michigan City, 9-0, in warmup to upcoming road matches vs. South Bend St. Joseph and Valparais

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Coming off a pair of close victories against schools with solid programs, Chesterton didn’t bring the same intensity in its first match at the new stadium against visiting Michigan City on Wednesday night.
Score another victory for human nature. It’s tough to generate the same enthusiasm when facing an opponent that you know can’t beat you and it looked that way for the Trojans in the first half of a 9-0 win that the mercy rule put a stop to with 14:03 remaining.
The hosts dominated possession from the outset but turned that into only a 3-0 lead at halftime.
Whatever was said at break resulted in the players taking the field with more urgency, more passing and less dribbling to start the second half.
In the first 40 minutes, the Trojans scored a goal every 13 minutes and 20 seconds. In the second half, that changed to a score every 4:20.
Sophomore Mikey Roberts found the net for the first and final goals of the night. Sophomore Tyler Hecimovich and junior Arnulfo Marquez also scored a pair of goals. Juniors Max Guerrero and David Shumate and senior Oliver Nelson also scored.
Roberts leads the 4-0 Trojans with six goals and has two assists.
“We still have to take it as a challenge,” Hecimovich said of how the Trojans opened the game facing an overmatched opponent. “We still have to take it as it’s going to be a tough game.”
Adrenaline tends to have a mind of its own and it’s extremely difficult to summon when the circumstances don’t create it. A lack of it can result in less communication than normal, which also was the case in this one.
“We’re doing well so far. Obviously, today we were a little frustrated with the way we played in the first half. We kind of knew that going in,” first-year coach Will Fortenberry said. “That’s what we talked about, making sure that didn’t happen, but you know how high school boys are. It’s a typical thing that you see tends to happen, and not just high school kids, even professionals.”
The Trojans have scored 18 goals and allowed one so far, a nice start to the former Boone Grove coach’s career.
They opened with a 6-0 win at LaPorte, not one of the better teams in the DAC. Then Chesterton defeated Illiana Christian 1-0 last Saturday, and two days later won 2-1 at Hanover Central.
It was Illiana Christian’s lone loss. The Vikings outscored Griffith, Kankakee Valley and Hobart by a combined 11-2 score.
After winning its first two matches, Hanover Central, which always schedules aggressively, has had a string of one-goal losses vs. Warsaw, Elkhart, Chesterton and Andrean.
The Trojans’ schedule stiffens on Saturday with a nonconference match at South Bend St. Joseph (2-2). The Wolves sandwiched one-goal losses to Warsaw and Penn around a 3-1 win over Lake Central.
After that, Fortenberry gets his first taste of Chesterton’s biggest rivalry match and shortest bus ride, to Valparaiso on Wednesday, Sept. 2.
So far, not bad.
“I like Coach Will and we’ve started off the season well, 4-0, so that’s pretty good,” Hecimovich said. “We’ve only been scored on once. We’re keeping a strong back line and our keeper (sophomore Daniel Vidt) is good.”
Fortenberry said he is confident there is enough offensive firepower, especially once senior Cody Baughman, coming off a strong offseason, returns from injury.
“So far, we’ve had a good solid run, played some pretty good soccer,” Fortenberry said. “There are the little things that we know we have to work on. Unfortunately, with missing the practices because of the storm, which most of the schools have, those little things are lacking.”