Game after game, two, sometimes three, defenders have lived in Josh Bronstorph’s shadow on the pitch. It hasn’t been nearly enough.
A senior at Dunwoody, Bronstorph scored in every game he appeared in, breaking the school-record for goals in a season and leading the Wildcats to their first region championship in 19 years. He scored his 41st goal Saturday in a 1-0 upset of perennial-region power Clarkston, clinching the 6-AAAAA title for the Wildcats.
To start the week, Bronstorph’s 41 goals were 17 more than any other player in DeKalb County, and the senior missed two games early in the season. Only two players in the county—Southwest DeKalb’s Machop Choi (24) and Lakeside’s Saul Tinoco (20)—have scored at least 20 goals.
Bronstorph also kicked for the Dunwoody football team, booting the winning field goal in a 3-0 win over rival Chamblee in September. He followed that up by scoring four goals in a 4-0 win over Chamblee on the pitch.
“What he’s done has been amazing,” first-year Dunwoody boys coach Edgar Flores said. “For a guy to score that many goals in today’s game is pretty significant.”
Bronstorph is a stocky, 5-foot-9 midfielder. He played his freshman season at Dunwoody, before spending the next two years playing only for the U.S. Development Academy. After receiving a scholarship from Georgia Southern and finding out that Flores was taking over the boys program, Bronsdorph elected play his senior season for a Dunwoody team that was considered good, but not great. He was the missing piece.
Flores, a longtime coach with college experience, spent the last three years turning around Dunwoody’s girls program. Last season, under Flores’ direction, the Dunwoody girls won the first region championship and first playoff game in program history.
Flores was asked to do the same with the boys program and has obliged. Dunwoody beat Clarkston, a long-time nemesis, twice and took down Marist for the first time in program history. The Wildcats won five straight games during the final two weeks of region play, capped by the upset of Clarkston.
Before the game, Flores told his team that he’d be the first to run on the field in jubilation if they pulled off the win.
“Typically, the coach, we kind of hold our emotion in and shake the other coach’s hand, but when it’s something like this, I couldn’t help it,” Flores said. “At this point, we’ve doubled our wins from last season. For them to be bad and turn around to be the best in the region was very emotional for us.”
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