Monday night’s Class 3A-District 4 boys soccer game between Santa Fe (Alachua) and visiting Keystone Heights was a matchup of two of the top goal scorers in the country.
Through seven games, senior Aaron Wiley of Keystone Heights was ranked No. 11 in the country by MaxPreps with 14 goals and 32 total points, while Santa Fe senior Giacomo Burgetto was 23rd nationally with 13 goals and 27 total points.
But the host Raiders found out a couple of minutes into the match that Keystone Heights was without junior goalkeeper Eli Ortiz (5’11, 270), who was out with an injury.
That opened plenty of opportunities and Santa Fe took advantage of that.
Senior midfielder Kishore Rose-Dewil had a hat trick, and five different Raiders scored, as Santa Fe breezed past the Indians, 8-0, in only one half of play.
“I think that we expected them to be good, you always come in expecting a fight, and we started strong, and we just kept the momentum throughout the whole game,” said Rose-Dewil, who also had a hat trick in the preseason against Eastside.
As much as the loss of Ortiz hurt Keystone from a defensive standpoint, it was also significant on the offensive side.
“We had done our research and a lot of the success that they’ve had was playing quickly out of the back with their goalkeeper and we were prepared for that,” said Santa Fe coach Morgan Dall’Acqua. “We were going to do our best to kind of close down Aaron Wiley’s open space in the center of the field, and I don’t need to describe why. I mean he just keeps scoring every chance he gets, so we knew we wanted to close that space, and a lot of his buildup has come from the quick throw out of the back.”
Instead, it was a quick striking offense that was the difference for Santa Fe (7-1), which scored all eight goals with over six minutes still left in the first half.
Wiley, who was an All Area selection after leading Class 3A in goals with 37, was not only held scoreless but Santa Fe limited him to just a couple of shots on goal.
“We didn’t want to give him a whole lot of space to run in, so that benefited us,” Dall’Acqua said. “And we wanted to force it into a control game. We didn’t want to give them the long ball threat. We wanted to try to force them into playing small ball and see if they could have success with it and we were able to disrupt them.”
The onslaught started just four minutes into the match on a header by senior Jose Bustamante.
“He’s been kind of forced to play behind several players, so he didn’t get the minutes over the first couple of years as a student-athlete that he probably deserved, so we pegged this to be a breakout season for him,” Dall’Acqua said. “He’s played phenomenal as a center back but now he’s pinned his second goal this evening so it’s a lot of fun when kids that work their butts off and they continue to put in the effort and then they have the success. It makes coaching worthwhile.”
Following Burgetto’s breakaway goal for a 2-0 lead at 34:56 of the first half, Rose-Dewil scored from way outside the box for a 3-0 lead just over nine minutes in.
“His first goal was just an absolute crushed ball,” Dall’Acqua said. “I wish that translated really, really well for the newspaper because the footage of that thing, it was just a phenomenal, phenomenal goal.”
Burgetto added his second goal just five minutes after his first, followed by a goal by junior Dharma Rico.
Rose-Dewil added back-to-back goals for a 7-0 lead, including his third of the night on a penalty kick outside the box.
“Kishore has had a phenomenal season for us,” Dall’Acqua said. “He was well due for the hat trick. We’ve had a lot of goals scored by Giacomo Burgetto and every night he comes out and he scores several more and Kishore has kind of been stuck in the background with all sorts of assists and playing beautiful, beautiful ball, but when we get to the end of the night if Giacomo’s got four goals it’s hard to give ‘man of the match’ to anyone else.”
Junior Wayne Boone added the final goal for Santa Fe, and sophomore goalkeeper Mayer Steen preserved Santa Fe’s second shutout of the season.
It was the first time this season that Keystone Heights (5-2-1) had been held scoreless.
Both teams are back in action on Wednesday. The Indians will host Columbia (Lake City) at 7:20 p.m., while the Raiders will host Gainesville at 7 p.m.
