Kankakee wins share of first conference title in program history

KANKAKEE − The resurgent Kankakee girls soccer program has now celebrated 21 Southland Athletic Conference wins over the last two seasons, after winning a total of eight conference games in the two years prior.

But as the Kays celebrated a win in Monday’s regular season finale, it was the first time in program history that a team did so as conference champions.

The Kays beat Crete-Monee 9-0 Monday to finish regular season 16-6 overall and 11-1 in Southland play, tying them atop the conference standings with Bloom, who the Kays split a pair of games with earlier in the season.

Senior Alexsandra Quintanar got the ball rolling for Kankakee on Monday, scoring the team’s first three goals in the opening 18 minutes of the game. As one of just two seniors on the roster along with goalkeeper Ana Lopez, Quintanar got to celebrate both a hat trick and a Southland title in her final conference game as a Kay.

“After four years, winning our first conference title feels really good, and being able to accomplish it with my closest friends,” Quintanar said. “Throughout the year we’ve gotten closer, our chemistry has gotten better, and we’re on to regionals.”

The Kays start regional play against Morgan Park at home on May 20, looking to follow up last season’s regional title, the first in program history. They finished 17-8 overall and 10-2 in conference play a season ago, placing second behind Beecher.

Jocelyn Sanchez, who scored four goals in the win Monday, said that she really feels like the team has taken major strides over those last two seasons and are also in position to keep that going into the future.

“You can really see the progress we’re making,” Sanchez said. “From the start of [Quintanar and Lopez’s] freshman year to the start of mine, we’ve really been looked down upon. We’re just trying to prove everyone wrong, and that’s what we’re going to do for these next couple of years.”

ExpandAutoplay

Image 1 of 6

Kankakee's Regina Vazquez-Vargas takes a shot o goal as Crete-Monee's Yanely Blas, left, defends in a game on May 12, 2025. (Nicholas Holstein for Shaw Local News Network)

Regina Vazquez-Vargas scored a pair of goals Monday as well, her first coming after Quintanar scored three in a row and before Sanchez scored four straight. Vazquez added her second goal with just eight seconds remaining in the second half, which had been shortened to 20 minutes due to the Kays’ 7-0 halftime lead, ending the game a few ticks early.

Following the game, head coach Vincent Mkhwanazi, still a bit damp after his team emptied the water cooler on his back during a postgame team photo, said that the conference title earned Monday is a major step in the direction he wants the program to keep heading in.

“We’re trying to walk in a new light, new norms, so this is good that we were actually able to get there,” he said. “Now we want to keep going there again and again and again after that.”

Kankakee enters the postseason as the No. 3 seed in the IHSA Class 2A Kankakee Sectional. As the five seed last season, the Kays beat Chicago Agricultural Science 2-1 in the regional semifinals and then picked up a dramatic shootout win over Chicago Back of the Yards in the regional championship.

The Kays had their season come to an end with a 5-0 loss in the sectional semifinals to top seed Providence Catholic. With the Celtics once again the top seed in the sectional, the two teams could meet again in the sectional semis.

Mkhwanazi said he feels like the team has been able to put itself in a good position heading into the playoffs and has a chance to follow up on some of last season’s success.

“We’d like to continue to work on the principles that we’ve been executing throughout the season,” he said. “In terms of outcome, we believe that if we stick to our gameplan, if we stick to what we’ve been working on, it should take us far.”

Quintanar said that she and the team are excited to head into postseason play and are doing so with their eyes set on collecting more milestones for the program.

“We’re looking forward to winning regionals, and eventually sectionals and making it farther,” she said. “Just making history again.”