Cardinal Newman boys beat Hammond for state championship
The members of the Cardinal Newman boys soccer team have a tradition of giving themselves goofy haircuts before a state title game.
Wyatt Millard took it as an opportunity to pay homage to someone important in his life.
“My grandpa passed recently,” Millard said. “I shaved his initials on my head. He had me.”
With “JRM,” for James Ray Millard, on the left side of his head, Wyatt Millard scored the first two goals of Saturday’s Class 3A SCISA state title game on the way to a hat trick in his team’s 4-1 win against rival Hammond. The fifth state championship in program history came in the Cardinals’ (18-1-1) third win of the season over the SkyHawks (13-5).
Cardinal Newman coach Will Eudy said James Millard got sick over spring break, and died in mid-April. Eudy watched his star player, a signee with the Naval Academy, work through that loss.
“They were really close,” Eudy said. “A close-knit family. I think it just was a rough thing for him to go through, like anybody losing a grandparent.
“It means a lot to him. Wears his emotions on his sleeve.”
Wyatt Millard had two unassisted goals by the 31st minute, the second on a penalty kick, but Hammond didn’t pack up shop. SkyHawks forward Rawlin Dukes scored off an assist from Lucas Prickett less than two minutes after Millard’s second.
Millard delivered a pretty goal in the 71st minute and German Jaramillo added an insurance goal a minute later. Those goals came when the SkyHawks started pressing as their situation grew desperate.
“We knew what we were up against,” Hammond coach Adrian Pinasco said, praising Cardinal Newman’s talent. “If we don’t score, the game is not 2-2 before the end of the game, we keep the game in reach and then go for it. Absolutely no regrets. We were about nine minutes away, 10 minutes away.”
Cardinal Newman went undefeated and untied against SCISA foes, losing only to 5A Wando, the top-ranked team in the nation. Cardinal Newman also tied last year’s 5A runner-up Clover and beat 4A champion Chapin.
Eudy said this group of Cardinals had to wait their turn. They’d watched the 2015 team win a state title and rank 15th nationally, and many of the 16 seniors had older brothers on the squad.
Wyatt Millard’s brother, Koty, was the state Gatorade Player of the Year in 2013, and his sister Tristan helped the Cardinal Newman girls claim a second state title a few hours earlier Saturday.
When it was his opportunity, with the initials along the left side of his scalp, he had another family presence in his corner.
“I know he had me,” Wyatt Millard said. “He gave me that hat trick.”
This story was originally published May 13, 2017 at 5:03 PM.