Valparaiso junior Jack Luth basked in the celebration, swarmed by well-wishers.
He seemed to be wearing a permanent smile on his face.
That moment hammered home why Luth didn’t hesitate when Vikings coach Mike Enghofer approached him about switching from forward to central defender late in the season.
“We weren’t getting very good defensive results,” Luth said. “We were getting lots of goals scored on us. Coach Mike was like, ‘What do you think about defense again?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, whatever helps the team win.’ And we haven’t looked back, honestly.”
Luth and the Vikings continued their march forward Thursday night, edging Munster 1-0 at home in a Class 3A regional semifinal.
Will Donley scored the lone goal as Valparaiso (11-9) advanced to play Concord (15-2-2), which is ranked No. 10 in the final state coaches poll, in the Penn Regional championship game on Saturday.
Luth changed spots for the Vikings’ loss in penalty kicks to Crown Point on Sept. 25. He has been instrumental in their surge down the stretch, including the regional semifinal that featured Nikola Dimitrijevic, who had 24 goals and six assists for No. 13 Munster (14-4-1).
Luth was quick to share the credit.
“Evan Olsen, our center defensive mid, was just great,” Luth said. “Everyone knows Nikola. He’s one of the premier players in … probably the state of Indiana. (Olsen) kind of just shut him down, which was huge and just let the rest of the defense do what we needed to do to win the game.”
Donley was equally quick to praise Luth.
“He does everything in the back for us,” Donley said. “He gets the ball out, 1v1 defending, he tackles. He brings the energy in the back the whole game — all 80 minutes, overtime, it doesn’t matter. He’s a great leader — only a junior and a great leader. We would be such a different team without him.”
Luth started in the middle of Valparaiso’s three-player defense last season.
“Last year, to fit me in, Mike was like, ‘Do you want to play center back?’” Luth recalled. “I was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’ It seemed to work, and this year it seemed to work again.”
Also a forward for his club team, Luth spent most of this season up front. He has eight goals, second-most on the team behind Donley, and a team-high 12 assists.
“We had him playing out on the left in an attacking role, and he was great up there,” Enghofer said. “Just with the way things have gone lately and the type of player he is, the tenacity and the attitude he brings to the team, he and I had a conversation. He was very open and receptive, and we put him back there.
“If you watch us play in the back, he is, next to Devon Hinko, those two are the absolute heartbeats of our team. He’s really selfless to go back there, where you probably don’t get as much credit, you have to sacrifice a lot of your assists. But he has been fantastic.”
Donley continued his roll, finding the back of the net for the sixth straight game. Less than three minutes into the second half, he tapped in his rebound after his initial shot hit the post.
“What else would you expect?” Enghofer said when asked about Donley.
Like Luth, Donley shared the credit.
“I got set up really well,” he said. “My teammate Hyland Yurchak played a great ball into the box. I was just there to clean it up. But the ball was great into the box. He put me in a good position.”
Luth believes the Vikings are in a good position to advance even further, although he still was processing their latest accomplishment.
“I’m shocked,” he said. “I’m ecstatic. This is the best team I could do it with. All of us grind every day. It was hard. Everyone kind of counted us out. It’s just really nice beating good teams. Munster was ranked. Crown Point was ranked. It’s just really good to be playing a regional final.”
