For the first time since 1997, Notre Dame's boys soccer team will not be bringing home a district championship.

The top-seeded Bulldogs, the defending Class 2 state champions, lost to St. Pius 1-0 Tuesday night in the Class 2, District 1 championship game at Notre Dame.

After playing to a 1-1 tie in their only other meeting, Tuesday's affair was another defensive struggle. Early on the No. 3 Lancers took it to Notre Dame.

St. Pius (14-8-2) just missed a scoring opportunity less than two minutes into the game and controlled the play for the first 10 minutes of the half. But after St. Pius' early barrage, Notre Dame (14-11-2) settled into the game and began to create scoring chances with help from a pair of senior forwards.

"Jonathan Market was everywhere," Notre Dame coach Brad Wittenborn said. "Blake Urhahn was creating some good opportunities as well."

Despite controlling ball possession in the first half, Notre Dame was not able to put many shots on Lancer goalie Danny Graves. The teams entered halftime scoreless.

The deadlock didn't last long. A Bulldog foul deep in Notre Dame territory set up a dangerous free kick for St. Pius. Lancer midfielder Kevin McWilliams took the kick and found the Lancers' tallest player, 6-foot-2 Aaron Owens, who headed it in for the game's only goal.

"I made eye contact with him before it, and it was just a perfect ball," Owens said.

Wittenborn said he knew St. Pius could be dangerous on set plays.

"That was one of the ways we talked about before the game that they could score," he said.

For the next 10 minutes the play was practically all on St. Pius' end. Notre Dame started to string together passes and continually applied pressure.

One of the Bulldogs' best scoring chances came right after the Lancer goal. Jason Delgado floated a cross right on to the head of Market, who got a strong shot off, but he was denied by the outstretched hand of Graves.

The play evened out midway through the half until the waning minutes of the game. With their season on the line, the Bulldogs pushed nearly every player up, including moving their goalie up into the offensive for a late corner kick.

"It got pretty tense," Owens said.

Notre Dame's best scoring chance came in the last two minutes when Market took a cross and missed above the goal from point-blank range.

"We had some really good scoring chances but sometimes the ball doesn't bounce your way," Wittenborn said.

jjoffray@semissourian.com

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