Wicho DelaPaz still remembered what his grandpa told him before St. Charles North’s regional final game against Huntley.

“Great players show up in big games,” he said. “And I felt like I needed to produce that.”

The senior captain didn’t get that opportunity in the regional finals. But with a Class 3A South Elgin sectional semifinal knotted at 1-1 in the 75th minute against Dundee-Crown, a ricocheted shot landing at his feet gave him the opportunity.

And he wasn’t going to let the opportunity go to waste.

“When I saw it rolling in front of me, it was just on a gold platter,” DelaPaz said. “I just saw it and hit it with my right foot first time, and it was just a great feeling.”

DelaPaz’s strike in the 75th minute proved to be the difference maker, as the eighth-seeded North Stars held on to secure a 2-1 victory over the fourth-seeded Chargers to secure their first trip to the sectional finals since 2017.

“He’s just a gamer, man,” North Stars coach Eric Willson said. “He comes from a family of gamers, and he’s not only been one of our leaders as a captain, but he helps us run the midfield the way we want, and he’ll make plays to help you win games.”

After holding the game scoreless through the first half of play, St. Charles North (11-6-3) wasted no time in getting an early advantage in the second half. Just 24 seconds after the whistle resumed play, junior Dino Valenti poked a ball away from a DC defender before chipping a shot past the goalie and into the net for the 1-0 advantage.

“You get 10 minutes at halftime to try to make whatever adjustments that you can, and sometimes you have to change the style you’re used to,” Willson said. “We said that we might need to play some balls into the corner and dump the ball and chase it down, and that’s exactly what we did that led to that first goal.”

Valenti has now scored in all three games for the North Stars this postseason, which have all been against teams in the Fox Valley Conference.

“That goal really set something off for us,” Valenti said. “We really needed that goal to create that momentum for us to keep playing and to keep fighting to eventually seal the game.”

However, the Chargers (16-6-3) persisted. Junior Arturo Flores scored an equalizer in the 54th minute, sending a laser from 25 yards out that squeezed between the crossbar and a leaping Tomas Nakoshima and into the back of the net.

“I just wanted to try my hardest for us to try and come back,” Flores said. “I wanted to help the team, and I had to take the shot.”

Dundee-Crown took control of the game in the first half, out-shooting North 3-0 in the first 40 minutes of play. But with the North Stars’ backline and Nakoshima saving all three shots.

“It was just a matter of execution,” Chargers coach Rey Vargas said. “We had the opportunity, we created and pushed, and I felt like we had a few chances to put a ball in and we just missed. And after that first goal, it just kind of woke us up.”

The Chargers were looking to make just their second sectional final in school history, with their only one coming back in 2019.

“It was kind of a slow start, and we were trying to find consistency out of them,” Vargas said of the season. “I think right around midseason we started to gain that, and it was a lot of that cohesiveness and that playing together, and everything just started clicking. You have to be proud of the effort these guys put in. We’ve had a fantastic season, and you can’t take away from that.”

The North Stars, meanwhile, will be playing for their first sectional title in eight years against third-seeded South Elgin 10 a.m. Saturday at South Elgin. The Storm defeated seventh-seeded Bartlett 7-6 in penalty kicks after ending regulation tied 3-3 to advance to their first-ever sectional final.

“It’s been a while,” Willson said. “The big thing for us was that we were trying to win a regional and kind of break through that wall. But I could just tell by the way the boys are that they weren’t satisfied. They want to keep going. So we’ll keep taking games as they come.”