Adam Sabbagian (19) of ESA battles with Ascension Christian’s Chloe Chashat (8) for the ball during a Division IV boys’ playoff game Tuesday at ESA.

CADE — Five minutes into No. 1 seed ESA’s Division IV regional round playoff game against Ascension Christian, the Falcons led 3-0.

Ten minutes into the first half, the Falcons led 6-0. Twenty minutes in, ESA held an 8-0 lead before Ascension Christian scored to cut the lead to 8-1.

The final 20 minutes of the first half saw ESA get two more goals, Ascension Christian get one more goal and at halftime the score was Falcons 10, Lions 2.

The mercy rule of an eight-goal lead kicked in at the break and ESA easily moved into the quarterfinal round and will face the winner of No. 9 seed Glenmora and No. 8 seed St. Frederick for a spot in the semifinals.

“They’re not just the top see. We’ve played against St. Amant and St. Paul’s this year and in my opinion they were the best teams that we faced … until today,” Ascension Christian coach Raymond Linton said. “Without a doubt, this team is the best team in the state at any level.

“They were better than we even expected. The kids played the best they could, they just got a little overwhelmed.”

Parrish Anderson scored four goals, Tommy Burns had two goals, Alex Malek had two goals, Matthew Pisani had a goal and Adam Sabbagian scored as the Falcons improved to 20-0-1 on the year.

“I thought the first 20-25 minutes we had good fluidity, good sharpness, good tempo, good runs in the box when the ball went wide,” said ESA coach J.B. Brunet. “We tried to stretch them out wide today in space and we’re pretty good when our players can get wide and go one-on-one and that’s what we tried to do.”

The Falcons did pretty much anything they wanted to do against the Lions, whether it was passing, scoring or playing defense.

It was such a great effort that Linton said his team told him that they basically just wanted to stop and watch ESA play.

“It was disappointing the way we lost but there are a whole lot worse teams that we could lose to,” said Linton.

Pisani, the ESA senior forward, said the team was just ready to come out and play in the playoffs.

“We come in every game expecting to get the opponent’s best efforts,” he said. “We come out excited every day and go out and play as hard as we can every day.”

The ESA senior said that with each round, the Falcons get a step closer to returning to the finals, where they lost to Newman last season.

“I think that we’re all excited,” he said. “I think that as the playoffs go on each round we’re going to face tougher and tougher teams. 

“I think that we’re more excited that Newman is on our side of the bracket this year and one of our main goals this year was to get another shot at them.”

Ascension (5-10-4) avoided the shutout with a pair of goals from Logan St. Pierre.

“I don’t think that anybody has scored two on them all year long,” Linton said. “At this point we’ll take all the prizes that we can get.”

Now the Falcons look to take another step towards the finals at UL Soccer Complex later this month.

“For us it’s just the next game,” said Brunet. “Whoever we play, we’ll try to prepare for them the best way we can. Each game is a different opponent, a different challenge. We’ll try to exploit weaknesses as best we can.”