Lyons holds on to win
West Suburban Silver opener
OPRF hits post on PK in 3-2 road loss
By Dave Owen
LAGRANGE- Reeling early from Oak Park and River Forest’s fast start and endless effort Tuesday, host Lyons turned up its own high-speed attack to produce a 3-2 win in the WSC Silver opener for both teams.
For the Huskies (2-3-2), a 1-0 lead on Graham Nagle-Deamer’s powerful 55-yard direct kick deflection 13:01 before halftime produced a reward to a strong start.
“I kicked it long and hoped for the best,” the Huskies’ sweeper said of his first high school goal, which appeared to glance between a defender and Huskies’ player in front and past the goalkeeper but was credited to Nagle-Deamer.
“I thought (teammate) Harrison Engeron got a piece of it, but sometimes you have to put it in front of the goalie and hope for the best.”
Unfortunately for OPRF, their early challenge quickly brought out the best in the Lions (6-2).
After 6-foot-5 Huskies’ goalkeeper Will Dunne twice came off his line to leap above the crowd and bat away chances, a wide open end-to-end sequence produced a Lyons breakthrough.
A steal from OPRF's Quentin Drane off a great attack by the Lions’ Cole Gilchrist produced a chance at the other end for Huskie Sam Lisak that was denied.
That 30-second segment continued with a very effective Lyons response: Gilchrist again dribbled in on the right wing and sent a nice cross to Cam Dowling in the box. He calmly set and lined a 15-yard laser into the net for a 1-1 tie 4:57 before halftime.
“It was a great pass from Cole,” Dowling said. “I’m wide open in the box, I took a touch and hit it as hard as I could. It’s just momentum. You get one goal and a second one is easier to get.”
The rejuvenated Lions started to make it look easy, striking again with 1:48 left in the half for a 2-1 lead. This time, an Oliver Martinez pass upfield hit Patrick Duncan bursting free up the middle. Duncan lined an 18-yard blast into the lower left corner of the net.
Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match Duncan (three goals, six assists this season) has teamed with Gilchrist (five goals, five assists) and Harry Hilling to wreak havoc on defenses all season.
“I love playing with Harry and Cole, especially with such a solid backline we have back there,” Duncan said. “That gives us a lot of space to create.
“Harry’s such a good player because he makes so much space for everyone else, and Cole being so fast – I really like what we have going. We create space for each other. It’s really fun playing up there with them.”
Coming off an agonizing overtime loss Saturday to No. 1-ranked St. Charles East (a game LT led until the 1:03 of regulation), the Lions had to battle more adversity from the Huskies.
“They’re a great team – they always come out hard,” Duncan said of OPRF. “We have great players on our team too – we take pressure well and we like to move the ball. Once we got in the groove of things we got more control in the game, and we were able to do what we want to do with the ball.”
Lions’ coach Paul Labbato was also impressed by the Huskies, and his own team’s resiliency.
“Give Oak Park a lot of credit,” Labbato said. “They work in every position. All 10 field players double the ball and run hard to the ball, and it creates indecision in your ideas because the spaces close down very quickly.
“I feel like our players starting out early were not trusting what was there, and then as the half went on and we went down a goal we started playing the ball quicker which gave us outlets past all the pressure. And then we were 3 vs. 3 in the back, and our forwards are very talented. We were able to find spaces.”
The sudden turn in fortunes had a painfully familiar ring for the Huskies.
“In every loss so far, we’ve had the lead,” OPRF coach Paul Wright said. “Every goal they (LT) scored they punished us on. The first goal we had a young man not getting back, and the second goal we left our mark and left a guy (Duncan) open in the middle of the field.
“If we don’t make those silly errors in the first half, it’s a different game. Their three best opportunities all came from lack of focus especially.”
The final Lions’ goal came with 30:14 left in the match. Forward Paul Folup turned an offensive zone steal into a 20-yard score sent from up top to the inside of the lower left corner of the net for a 3-1 lead.
“We just started to lose our marks,” Nagle-Deamer said. “That’s what happened on a couple of the goals.
“Sometimes we’ll score first and then think, ‘1-0 lead, let’s play defensive.’ We have to have the mentality that it’s 0-0 and keep fighting for another goal.”
Down 3-1, the Huskies showed plenty of fight.
While Lyons continued its chances (including a Diego Lopez dribble into the box that was smothered by Dunne with 25:20 left), OPRF returned to its early game level and produced the majority of chances.
Martinez nicely blocked a shot inside the box by OPRF’s Zach El Metennani with 19:30 to play, then Kirk Svensson headed a Drane corner kick just wide of the post with 17:50 left.
The attack intensified with 14:53 to play when an LT foul in the box gave the Huskies a penalty kick. Standout defender Mavin Gill took the shot for OPRF, but lined the attempt off the right post to keep the score 3-1.
“I tell my guys low and hard to the corners (on PK’s),” Wright said. “I can go to bed at night hearing a ding off a post, but not going high and wide. I can’t fault him. It’s either a phenomenal PK side netting or the post.”
Dodging that threat, the Lions reversed the tide by countering with 7:25 to go (a Gilchrist 22-yarder over the net off a Hilling corner kick) and 6:05 left (Dunne’s nice block and catch of a tough 20-yard Duncan free kick).
But the Huskies never let up, and eventually drew closer.
With 2:40 to go, a Purvis Funches offensive-end steal set up a great Lisak chance from 15 yards out – but Lions’ defender Leo Gabrek came up big with a foot block of Lisak’s shot.
At the turn of the 80th minute, OPRF drew another foul in the box and received another PK. This time it was lined inside the lower left corner of the net by Joe Gullo to bring the Huskies within 3-2.
Lyons' inability to shake the Huskies frustrated Labbato.
“We’re still learning a lot about ourselves,” he said. “We’re having trouble closing games. We couldn’t close the St. Charles game, and today if that (first) PK goes in it could have been a 3-3 game. Luckily that second penalty kick happened with just a minute left. We just had to clear it a few times (after that), but it was still dangerous.
“The casual 1-0 and 3-1 leads can quickly turn into losses and close games. Overall we have to work on that.”
Labbato couldn’t fault the continued strong work of his defender corps.
“Oliver Martinez started in right back for an injured player and played most of both halves. He really was a nice settling player back there.
“He did a great job, and our center backs Leo Gabrek and John Mazur are very competent in the run of play. Teams aren’t getting a lot of shots on us. They’re obviously playing very solid.”
A player on the offensive end continues to impress as well.
“Kind of the unsung guy in this whole thing is Cole Gilchrist,” Labbato said. “He all of a sudden a ton of goals and assists, very dangerous with good ideas. He was injured last year and was never 100 percent. This year he is, and it’s paying dividends.”
Oak Park and River Forest could take plenty of positives from Tuesday: the first 35 minutes included quality attacks on goal by Quin Neuman, Noah Fluharty and Svensson and two powerful long distance free kicks by Nagle-Deamer (one a goal). Defensively in that span, Drane broke up two Lions’ attacks and Max Klevgard made a nice steal that ignited a counterattack.
“We’re really hard workers,” Wright said, “but we’re having trouble scoring goals from the run of play. We had a goal from a PK and a set play (at Lyons). From the run of play we’re not having that finishing touch. That’s what we really need to work on.
“It’s frustrating because we’re right there. We just need something or somebody to push us over it. Hopefully we’ll have a few dominos topple our way.”
Things fell the Lions’ way after a painful finish on Saturday.
“We just wanted to get back out here and win,” Dowling said. “Saturday was definitely a game we felt like we should have won, and we wanted to take it out on these guys and give it our best effort.”
“It was tough coming off of that,” Duncan said. “We feel like we should have won that game, but I think it was good for us to see that we definitely match up with the best team in the state (St. Charles East). I think it’s going to be a good thing moving forward.”
The Lions and Huskies quickly move forward to their next big challenges, both in conference play and in this weekend’s kickoff of the PepsiCo Showdown tournament at the same Lyons Township North campus fields.
“We’re right there,” Wright said, “and the nice thing is that Pepsi coming up will hopefully get us over the hump. We’ll try a couple different looks and go from there.”
Labbato looks forward to the different looks PepsiCo Showdown opponents provide.
“Pepsi’s such a fun tournament,” he said, “and I think the best part of the tournament is that every year your schedule changes by four games.
“We’re playing Minooka, and we’ve never played Minooka. It’s fun not to play the same teams every season. Over the 10 years of Pepsi showdowns we’ve probably played 35 teams, so our schedule gets a boost of unfamiliar and different schools.”
Labbato also expects the tournament to mark the return of injured Daniel Gutierrez, the Lions’ top goal scorer the first three games of 2014 before getting hurt.
Duncan looks forward both to the tournament and the WSC Silver tests ahead, after surviving a test from the Huskies.
“It’s a big week for us with two conference games and then Pepsi,” Duncan said. “It’s good to get the ball rolling. We want to go undefeated in conference and this is a big first step. OPRF’s always tough – they always hustle hard, so this is big for us.”
Starting lineups:
OPRF
G-Will Dunne
D-Quentin Drane
D-Mavin Gill
D-Graham Nagle-Deamer
D-Kirk Svensson
M-Harrison Engeron
M-Noah Fluharty
M-Joe Gullo
M-Evan Kindler
F-Sam Lisak
F-Quinn Neuman
LYONS TOWNSHIP
G-Donald Darrus
D-John Mazur
D-Leo Gabrek
D-Grant Thomas
D-Oliver Martinez
M-Nick Economou
M-Harry Hilling
M-Patrick Duncan
M-Greg Piechalak
F-Paul Fulop
F-Cole Gilchrist
Man of the Match: Patrick Duncan, Lyons Township
West Suburban Silver opener
OPRF hits post on PK in 3-2 road loss
By Dave Owen
LAGRANGE- Reeling early from Oak Park and River Forest’s fast start and endless effort Tuesday, host Lyons turned up its own high-speed attack to produce a 3-2 win in the WSC Silver opener for both teams.
For the Huskies (2-3-2), a 1-0 lead on Graham Nagle-Deamer’s powerful 55-yard direct kick deflection 13:01 before halftime produced a reward to a strong start.
“I kicked it long and hoped for the best,” the Huskies’ sweeper said of his first high school goal, which appeared to glance between a defender and Huskies’ player in front and past the goalkeeper but was credited to Nagle-Deamer.
“I thought (teammate) Harrison Engeron got a piece of it, but sometimes you have to put it in front of the goalie and hope for the best.”
Unfortunately for OPRF, their early challenge quickly brought out the best in the Lions (6-2).
After 6-foot-5 Huskies’ goalkeeper Will Dunne twice came off his line to leap above the crowd and bat away chances, a wide open end-to-end sequence produced a Lyons breakthrough.
A steal from OPRF's Quentin Drane off a great attack by the Lions’ Cole Gilchrist produced a chance at the other end for Huskie Sam Lisak that was denied.
That 30-second segment continued with a very effective Lyons response: Gilchrist again dribbled in on the right wing and sent a nice cross to Cam Dowling in the box. He calmly set and lined a 15-yard laser into the net for a 1-1 tie 4:57 before halftime.
“It was a great pass from Cole,” Dowling said. “I’m wide open in the box, I took a touch and hit it as hard as I could. It’s just momentum. You get one goal and a second one is easier to get.”
The rejuvenated Lions started to make it look easy, striking again with 1:48 left in the half for a 2-1 lead. This time, an Oliver Martinez pass upfield hit Patrick Duncan bursting free up the middle. Duncan lined an 18-yard blast into the lower left corner of the net.
Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match Duncan (three goals, six assists this season) has teamed with Gilchrist (five goals, five assists) and Harry Hilling to wreak havoc on defenses all season.
“I love playing with Harry and Cole, especially with such a solid backline we have back there,” Duncan said. “That gives us a lot of space to create.
“Harry’s such a good player because he makes so much space for everyone else, and Cole being so fast – I really like what we have going. We create space for each other. It’s really fun playing up there with them.”
Coming off an agonizing overtime loss Saturday to No. 1-ranked St. Charles East (a game LT led until the 1:03 of regulation), the Lions had to battle more adversity from the Huskies.
“They’re a great team – they always come out hard,” Duncan said of OPRF. “We have great players on our team too – we take pressure well and we like to move the ball. Once we got in the groove of things we got more control in the game, and we were able to do what we want to do with the ball.”
Lions’ coach Paul Labbato was also impressed by the Huskies, and his own team’s resiliency.
“Give Oak Park a lot of credit,” Labbato said. “They work in every position. All 10 field players double the ball and run hard to the ball, and it creates indecision in your ideas because the spaces close down very quickly.
“I feel like our players starting out early were not trusting what was there, and then as the half went on and we went down a goal we started playing the ball quicker which gave us outlets past all the pressure. And then we were 3 vs. 3 in the back, and our forwards are very talented. We were able to find spaces.”
The sudden turn in fortunes had a painfully familiar ring for the Huskies.
“In every loss so far, we’ve had the lead,” OPRF coach Paul Wright said. “Every goal they (LT) scored they punished us on. The first goal we had a young man not getting back, and the second goal we left our mark and left a guy (Duncan) open in the middle of the field.
“If we don’t make those silly errors in the first half, it’s a different game. Their three best opportunities all came from lack of focus especially.”
The final Lions’ goal came with 30:14 left in the match. Forward Paul Folup turned an offensive zone steal into a 20-yard score sent from up top to the inside of the lower left corner of the net for a 3-1 lead.
“We just started to lose our marks,” Nagle-Deamer said. “That’s what happened on a couple of the goals.
“Sometimes we’ll score first and then think, ‘1-0 lead, let’s play defensive.’ We have to have the mentality that it’s 0-0 and keep fighting for another goal.”
Down 3-1, the Huskies showed plenty of fight.
While Lyons continued its chances (including a Diego Lopez dribble into the box that was smothered by Dunne with 25:20 left), OPRF returned to its early game level and produced the majority of chances.
Martinez nicely blocked a shot inside the box by OPRF’s Zach El Metennani with 19:30 to play, then Kirk Svensson headed a Drane corner kick just wide of the post with 17:50 left.
The attack intensified with 14:53 to play when an LT foul in the box gave the Huskies a penalty kick. Standout defender Mavin Gill took the shot for OPRF, but lined the attempt off the right post to keep the score 3-1.
“I tell my guys low and hard to the corners (on PK’s),” Wright said. “I can go to bed at night hearing a ding off a post, but not going high and wide. I can’t fault him. It’s either a phenomenal PK side netting or the post.”
Dodging that threat, the Lions reversed the tide by countering with 7:25 to go (a Gilchrist 22-yarder over the net off a Hilling corner kick) and 6:05 left (Dunne’s nice block and catch of a tough 20-yard Duncan free kick).
But the Huskies never let up, and eventually drew closer.
With 2:40 to go, a Purvis Funches offensive-end steal set up a great Lisak chance from 15 yards out – but Lions’ defender Leo Gabrek came up big with a foot block of Lisak’s shot.
At the turn of the 80th minute, OPRF drew another foul in the box and received another PK. This time it was lined inside the lower left corner of the net by Joe Gullo to bring the Huskies within 3-2.
Lyons' inability to shake the Huskies frustrated Labbato.
“We’re still learning a lot about ourselves,” he said. “We’re having trouble closing games. We couldn’t close the St. Charles game, and today if that (first) PK goes in it could have been a 3-3 game. Luckily that second penalty kick happened with just a minute left. We just had to clear it a few times (after that), but it was still dangerous.
“The casual 1-0 and 3-1 leads can quickly turn into losses and close games. Overall we have to work on that.”
Labbato couldn’t fault the continued strong work of his defender corps.
“Oliver Martinez started in right back for an injured player and played most of both halves. He really was a nice settling player back there.
“He did a great job, and our center backs Leo Gabrek and John Mazur are very competent in the run of play. Teams aren’t getting a lot of shots on us. They’re obviously playing very solid.”
A player on the offensive end continues to impress as well.
“Kind of the unsung guy in this whole thing is Cole Gilchrist,” Labbato said. “He all of a sudden a ton of goals and assists, very dangerous with good ideas. He was injured last year and was never 100 percent. This year he is, and it’s paying dividends.”
Oak Park and River Forest could take plenty of positives from Tuesday: the first 35 minutes included quality attacks on goal by Quin Neuman, Noah Fluharty and Svensson and two powerful long distance free kicks by Nagle-Deamer (one a goal). Defensively in that span, Drane broke up two Lions’ attacks and Max Klevgard made a nice steal that ignited a counterattack.
“We’re really hard workers,” Wright said, “but we’re having trouble scoring goals from the run of play. We had a goal from a PK and a set play (at Lyons). From the run of play we’re not having that finishing touch. That’s what we really need to work on.
“It’s frustrating because we’re right there. We just need something or somebody to push us over it. Hopefully we’ll have a few dominos topple our way.”
Things fell the Lions’ way after a painful finish on Saturday.
“We just wanted to get back out here and win,” Dowling said. “Saturday was definitely a game we felt like we should have won, and we wanted to take it out on these guys and give it our best effort.”
“It was tough coming off of that,” Duncan said. “We feel like we should have won that game, but I think it was good for us to see that we definitely match up with the best team in the state (St. Charles East). I think it’s going to be a good thing moving forward.”
The Lions and Huskies quickly move forward to their next big challenges, both in conference play and in this weekend’s kickoff of the PepsiCo Showdown tournament at the same Lyons Township North campus fields.
“We’re right there,” Wright said, “and the nice thing is that Pepsi coming up will hopefully get us over the hump. We’ll try a couple different looks and go from there.”
Labbato looks forward to the different looks PepsiCo Showdown opponents provide.
“Pepsi’s such a fun tournament,” he said, “and I think the best part of the tournament is that every year your schedule changes by four games.
“We’re playing Minooka, and we’ve never played Minooka. It’s fun not to play the same teams every season. Over the 10 years of Pepsi showdowns we’ve probably played 35 teams, so our schedule gets a boost of unfamiliar and different schools.”
Labbato also expects the tournament to mark the return of injured Daniel Gutierrez, the Lions’ top goal scorer the first three games of 2014 before getting hurt.
Duncan looks forward both to the tournament and the WSC Silver tests ahead, after surviving a test from the Huskies.
“It’s a big week for us with two conference games and then Pepsi,” Duncan said. “It’s good to get the ball rolling. We want to go undefeated in conference and this is a big first step. OPRF’s always tough – they always hustle hard, so this is big for us.”
Starting lineups:
OPRF
G-Will Dunne
D-Quentin Drane
D-Mavin Gill
D-Graham Nagle-Deamer
D-Kirk Svensson
M-Harrison Engeron
M-Noah Fluharty
M-Joe Gullo
M-Evan Kindler
F-Sam Lisak
F-Quinn Neuman
LYONS TOWNSHIP
G-Donald Darrus
D-John Mazur
D-Leo Gabrek
D-Grant Thomas
D-Oliver Martinez
M-Nick Economou
M-Harry Hilling
M-Patrick Duncan
M-Greg Piechalak
F-Paul Fulop
F-Cole Gilchrist
Man of the Match: Patrick Duncan, Lyons Township