Junior midfielder Miguel Vilchis is known by his Bloom coaches and teammates as a steady role player who keeps his team composed and helps set up the Blazing Trojans’ top scorers.
Lately, though, Vilchis has been showing off his shot to emerge as another offensive threat.
“I feel like I’ve stepped up quite a bit,” Vilchis said. “At the start of the season, I was maybe struggling just a bit. But I stepped up and started converting on goals and assisting on goals.
“My confidence has gone through the roof.”
Vilchis continued his hot streak Wednesday night, producing a goal and an assist in the second half as fifth-seeded Bloom topped 12th-seeded Eisenhower 3-1 in a Class 3A Rich Township Regional semifinal.
Jonathan Magana scored twice for the Blazing Trojans (19-5-2), who will take on fourth-seeded Lockport (15-4-1) at 5 p.m. Friday in the championship game. It’s a rematch of a memorable 2021 sectional semifinal, which the Porters won 3-2 in a shootout.
Rodrigo Cisneros moved from defender to goalkeeper and made 11 saves for Eisenhower (7-7-3).
After assisting on Magana’s second goal, which broke a 1-1 tie with 13:35 left in the game, Vilchis gave the Blazing Trojans some breathing room when he took a free kick from 25 yards and blasted a shot into the top of the net with 6:48 left.
It was his 13th goal of the season.
“‘Miggy’ has been impressing me a lot,” Magana said of Vilchis. “Most of the time, he’s there. He’s either slotting a good ball in, using his good vision or using his insane curve. He has a really good shot.”
Vilchis has had a busy fall as he’s also kicking for Bloom’s football team.
“It’s going pretty good,” Vilchis said of football. “It’s my first year and coaches say I have a pretty good foot. Sometimes, I’m at soccer practice and they pull me for football, and then I go back to soccer.
“It can get quite tiring, but I enjoy doing it.
Magana scored his 30th goal of the season off Omar Ortiz’s pass in the 30th minute.
Eisenhower tied the game with just a minute left in the first half, though, as defender Christian Casillas played a ball that ended up as a Bloom own goal. The ball went off a defender’s head and trickled through the fingers of goalkeeper Angel Galvan.
Galvan, however, bounced back to make four big saves in the second half.
In the other net, the tall Cisneros came up huge, taking over after starting goalkeeper Guillermo Vences was given a yellow card in the ninth minute. Cisneros made several big saves to keep the game tied.
“At the beginning of the season, he was going to be our starting goalie, but I figured we needed him on the field,” Eisenhower coach Iran Rodriguez said of Cisneros. “The opportunity came up where he needed to step up and then I rode the hot hand from there.
“I’m proud of our guys. We battled. Bloom’s go-ahead goal was just phenomenal, so hats off to them.”
Magana delivered that goal, taking a pass from Vilchis and ripping a shot from 25 yards that went in off the inside of the left post.
“It was good placement,” Magana said. “Their keeper was darn near 8-feet tall so there was only so much I could do. All that really mattered was striking it with power.”
Bloom got the final boost it needed from Vilchis, who is always a consistent presence.
“Miguel’s been working hard,” Bloom coach Zack Radtke said. “He’s been a steady rock in the middle of the field. He’s our steady guy to settle us down and do the small things.”
Steve Millar is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.