By Donald Heath
Special for the Effingham Herald
SPRINGFIELD – South Effingham’s boys soccer team, surrounded by questions to start the season, has been finding a lot of positive answers lately.
The Mustangs won for the fifth time in their last six games March 14 with a workman-like 2-0 victory over rival Effingham County at Rebel Field.
South (5-2) defeated the Rebels for the ninth straight time and remained unbeaten against the cross-county foe (10–0-2) since 2017.
The Mustangs beat ECHS 7-1 and 5-2 last season, but that was with four double-digit goal scorers who graduated or chose not to return to the team. First-team all-region performer Edson Escobar, who graduated and is playing professionally, watched his former team from the sidelines Friday.
Escobar saw a group that wasn’t quite as offensively potent as the 2024 team, but the newbies have remained solid defensively (a region-low seven goals in seven games), do a good job of possessing the ball and have just enough scoring punch to be a threat in the region playoffs less than three weeks away.
“We struggled to find our identity in the first two games of the season and the loss (to Southeast Bulloch) was an eye-opening experience,” Mustangs coach DaKota Paradice said. “We used a lot of things for motivation. We had to dig deep and get tougher.”
He had some help in the early going when his defensemen made two point-blank stops at the goalline after a cross pinballed to Rebels in the penalty area.
Less than five minutes later, Tim France headed in a 50-yard pass off a free kick from Jude Rowe to give South a 1-0 lead at 29:29 of the first half.
“I felt like in the beginning we were playing with confidence and when they scored it flipped the script and they were the ones playing with confidence,” ECHS coach Austin Czachowski said. “There wasn’t a lack of opportunity. We have to take care of business and convert them.”
Jaxson Fronczek, a freshman, added an insurance goal with 20:37 remaining to seal the win.
Fronczek had the game-winning goal on a 30-yard blast against Statesboro in double overtime on Feb. 25.
“This is a young team, but it’s a fun team and they’re finding their identity,” said Paradice, who had praise for his Mustangs in their only blemish in the last six games – a 3-0 loss to Glynn.
The game was tied during the first 60 minutes before the Red Terrors broke the deadlock.
“We have a lot of competition, maybe 10 on the bench who get playing time. This is the most kids I’ve had moving up and down (for starting positions),” Paradice said.
ECHS (2-7) dropped its fifth straight game, but has been more competitive than its record might suggest. The Rebels lost 2-1 in overtime to Lakeside, 3-2 on a late penalty kick to Greenbrier and 0-0, 4-3 in penalty kicks to Camden County coming into the SEHS game.
