Staff photo / Greg Macafee Warren JFK’s Nick Ryan (14) looks to cross over to his left foot before his game-winning goal against Tuscarawas Valley Tuesday night.

WARREN — Trips to district title games don’t come around very often, so with his team needing a jolt of energy on Tuesday, Warren JFK boys soccer Anthony Ledenko sent them a special message during halftime.

In turn, his boys responded for an exciting 1-0 win over Tuscarawas Valley to secure a trip to the Division III, Niles 1 district final Saturday at 11 a.m. against No. 1 seed Cardinal Mooney.

“A lot of people have paved the way for these kids to play in this program,” Ledenko said about his halftime message. “A lot of people have been on teams that have just fallen shy. I played on a lot of those teams that fell just short of a district title. So I just wanted to tell them that this isn’t something that comes around all the time. This is something special. There is something on the other side of this game. So if we don’t win this one, you’re going to feel it.”

After a lackluster first half, where it seemed the Eagles were just going through the motions, Nick Ryan made a run from midfield into open space towards the top of the 18-yard box with about 24 minutes left in the half.

While making a run of his own down the right sideline, Michael Condoleon hit Ryan in stride with a pass towards the top of the box and the Eagles’ leading scorer cut it back to his left foot before firing off a contested shot into the back of the net for the game winner.

“All I saw was open space, so I cut it back in and just whacked it,” Ryan said about his 30th goal of the season.

After the offensive struggle in the first half, where scoring chances were at a minimum, the momentum started to shift early on in the second half as the Eagles started creating opportunities.

Just four minutes into the half, a Warren JFK corner kick was cleared back out to Luke Rupeka near the sideline and the junior midfielder sent a cross back into the middle. Ryan got a head on it but it went over the net.

From there, the athletic forward siad he could feel that a goal was coming.

“I knew it was coming, I knew it was a defensive battle, but I knew we were going to end up putting one in,” Ryan said.

What followed after Ryan’s goal was pure jubilation. In the moment, the Eagles sprinted to midfield and embraced for a quick celebration, but there was still work to be done as Tuscarawas Valley continued to put on the pressure.

Shortly after the go-ahead goal, junior goalkeeper Nico Ciminero made a big stop in goal and the Eagles bounced back for a few more opportunities of their own. Ciminero finished the game with seven saves.

Ryan almost put another one away on a header off a corner kick, but it was just wide.

In the end, the one goal was all the Eagles would need as they held off the Trojans in the end for their 14th victory of the season.

The journey to get back to this point made the victory that much more special for the Eagles. Two years ago, the Eagles went winless. Then, just last year, Ledenko led the Eagles into the playoffs before suffering a 3-1 loss to Champion. Now, they are headed back to a district title game where they will play Cardinal Mooney at 11 a.m. on Saturday at Niles.

“This is a special feeling,” Ledenko said. “Last time we got this far was 2015, last time we won it was 2010 and we’ve won two district titles in history and this is sort of the tradition we have here at the school. Not just football, not just basketball, we expect to be good in everything. We expect to compete for titles.”