Crystal Lake South romps past Woodstock
Host Gators use game to work out some kinks
By Dave Surico
CRYSTAL LAKE -- In Illinois' compact boys soccer season, teams can't let any opportunity go to waste.
So coach Brian Allen and his Crystal Lake South squad made sure they took stock in many facets of their game in a 9-0 home romp over undermanned Woodstock on Thursday.
The first piece of business was evident almost immediately after the whistle -- the Gators became very direct.
"They (Woodstock) play a high line," Allen said. "Woodstock North did that against us last week, and we had a difficult time solving it. We got called offsides double digits, and that is unacceptable -- you've got to make adjustments.
"I was happy today that we made those adjustments early on, and we gave ourselves a cushion. That's good because we've got some guys banged up, so we were able to get a good rotation in.
"And we didn't see a letdown -- that was the coolest part to see. It didn't matter who was in there, we stayed at a high level, which it had not been in the last four games."
Crystal Lake South gave a portent of things to come when it hit the crossbar in the second minute. At times, Woodstock had all 11 of its players in its half of the field to try to slow the Crystal Lake South attack.
Still, sophomore striker Andrew Grabowski broke free in the fourth minute and was taken down from behind by Woodstock's Eric Arias. The play likely saved the Blue Streaks from an early deficit, but it cost the sophomore a yellow card.
The hosts could have broken the ice in the seventh minute if not for Woodstock rookie keeper Johnny Presisto, who stopped a hard shot and then stoned Crystal Lake Central's Orlando Tapia from in close on the rebound.
Persisto then covered a cross a minute later and then fully extended his 5-foot-4 frame to knock away a ball at the crossbar in the 10th minute. The usual defender/midfielder found out he was playing goal before the game because neither of the rostered goalkeepers was available for the match.
Meanwhile, Crystal Lake South's Grabowski continued to make himself dangerous, and ultimately earned Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match honors. Woodstock's Matthew Shook and Jose Alanis were both forced to make 1 v. 1 stops on Grabowski before the 13th minute, but that didn't stop the sophomore. He broke free for two scores in the 15th minute to start the Gators' goal parade.
Woodstock tried to muster an attack but had little success. Its first shot on goal was a one-bouncer from distance from Jose Gonzalez in the 18th minute. Crystal Lake South keeper Dalton Kause handled it easily.
Crystal Lake South made it 3-0 when Charlie Ruff dribbled through two defenders on the left side before slotting the ball inside the right post from 18 yards out at 22 minutes. He was followed on the score sheet two minutes later by Julio Campos.
Woodstock's Gonzalez continued to display an impressive work rate with a 40-yard run down the left side that led to a Blue Streaks throw-in. Shook's toss went through the box, but there were no teammates to cash in on the golden chance.
Gonzalez tried to cut into the lead on a 25-yard free kick in the 33rd minute, but his far-side, upper-90 attempt was denied by Kause.
Crystal Lake South followed with an Andrew Perrine score in front off a scramble in the 37th minute to give the hosts a 5-0 lead at the break.
After the intermission, the Gators picked up where they left off. Grabowski, still stung from the earlier foul, completed his hat trick two minutes into the second half.
"I was kind of mad because I thought I had a chance to go in and score," Grabowski said of the play early in the game. "It did make me play harder because I really wanted it back.
"This gave us a chance to play the way that we need to play and work on some things that we need to work on."
Tapia, Nikolas Getzinger and Stefan Harris closed out the scoring for the Gators (6-2-1).
Allen credited his entire team for a consistant and solid effort.
"We don't want to train any bad habits, so we have the mentality that we're going to play as hard as we can for as long as we can and the score will sort itself out," he said.
"We put in players in the second half and the level stayed high. I'm not gonna fault that. It's hard to tell a kid who's only gotten 10 minutes in the past couple of weeks to not go out there and play the game the right way."
For Woodstock (2-10), it would have been hard for the game to turn out any other way, given the tough hand dealt to the Blue Streaks and their coach Mike Golda.
"We've had three concussions over the past week, we've got a knee injury, yeah we've been pretty beat up," said Golda, whose 15 players on the bench included four call-ups. "It seems my top seven or eight players have the injury bug. So it's been a learning process for those guys."
To further put this stretch of the season in the "If I didn't have bad luck ... " file, Golda's only healthy goalie was lost when his physical was not kept current. That gave the nod to sophomore Presisto, who had almost no experience at the position. He went on to provided one of the few highlights in the game for Woodstock. Without him the score could have easily been 9-0 in the first half.
"I think I did fine. It was fun," said the sophomore surprise starter. "We need to learn to mark up, because we haven't been doing that the last couple of games. We're still young. We have a bunch of sophomores, and we're still developing. We just need to practice more and take it more seriously."
Golda has been working on the problems exposed by injuries and inexperience.
"Once that first ball goes in (against us), they start to play me ball, instead of team ball," he said. "And I've been trying to fix that for the past three weeks. One-, two-touch, they know how to play it.
"Definitely they've let the snowball effect come into play this season. I know we will learn from this adversity, and they're going to have to learn how to come together. I had to make two sophomores captains this year."
The Gators extended their unbeaten string to six with the win, but they have their eyes on bigger things. They travel to play West Aurora, Hersey and tournament host Hononegah this weekend before starting their league schedule against Jacobs on Sept. 23.
Senior co-captain Charlie Ruff is ready for Fox Valley Valley Division play.
"We're getting excited for conference," said the four-year varsity player. "There's a whole new game. The intensity is a lot more, all the games mean a lot more. It's not just about playing well, it's about getting results, and that leads to the playoffs where it's one-and-done.
"We've had a lot of good teams (at Crystal Lake South), but this team is the most complete. We're overall top to bottom really well rounded, and we play well together. So I think as a total group we play the best soccer that I've been here for."
Coach Allen thinks this team can win the Gators' first conference title since 2010.
"This group showed a lot in our summer stuff," he said. "We went to the Iowa team camp, and they really came close together as a team. And when you have that and some special players who have been in the program four years (Ruff and Tapia) who let them know this is the expectation, guys ... it becomes infectious.
"They want to leave their stamp on the program."
Starting lineups
Woodstock
GK: Johnny Presisto
D: Eric Arias
D: Jared Warmbier
D: Miguel Carreno
D: Matthew Shook
MF: William Maidment
MF: Josue Carreno
MF: Jose Gonzalez
MF: Julio Arias
MF: Andy Dominquez
F: Miguel Rodriguez
Crystal Lake South
GK: Dalton Kause
D: Zach Schmidt
D: Kennan Grissom
D: Zach Bimbi
D: Andrew Perrine
MF: Ryan Russman
MF: Mike Woeste
MF: Orlando Tapia
MF: Julio Campos
MF: Charlie Ruff
F: Andrew Grabowski
Man of the Match: Andrew Grabowski, Crystal Lake South
Referees: Mike Schmickley (center); Andy Maratto; Mike Lichtfuss.
Host Gators use game to work out some kinks
By Dave Surico
CRYSTAL LAKE -- In Illinois' compact boys soccer season, teams can't let any opportunity go to waste.
So coach Brian Allen and his Crystal Lake South squad made sure they took stock in many facets of their game in a 9-0 home romp over undermanned Woodstock on Thursday.
The first piece of business was evident almost immediately after the whistle -- the Gators became very direct.
"They (Woodstock) play a high line," Allen said. "Woodstock North did that against us last week, and we had a difficult time solving it. We got called offsides double digits, and that is unacceptable -- you've got to make adjustments.
"I was happy today that we made those adjustments early on, and we gave ourselves a cushion. That's good because we've got some guys banged up, so we were able to get a good rotation in.
"And we didn't see a letdown -- that was the coolest part to see. It didn't matter who was in there, we stayed at a high level, which it had not been in the last four games."
Crystal Lake South gave a portent of things to come when it hit the crossbar in the second minute. At times, Woodstock had all 11 of its players in its half of the field to try to slow the Crystal Lake South attack.
Still, sophomore striker Andrew Grabowski broke free in the fourth minute and was taken down from behind by Woodstock's Eric Arias. The play likely saved the Blue Streaks from an early deficit, but it cost the sophomore a yellow card.
The hosts could have broken the ice in the seventh minute if not for Woodstock rookie keeper Johnny Presisto, who stopped a hard shot and then stoned Crystal Lake Central's Orlando Tapia from in close on the rebound.
Persisto then covered a cross a minute later and then fully extended his 5-foot-4 frame to knock away a ball at the crossbar in the 10th minute. The usual defender/midfielder found out he was playing goal before the game because neither of the rostered goalkeepers was available for the match.
Meanwhile, Crystal Lake South's Grabowski continued to make himself dangerous, and ultimately earned Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match honors. Woodstock's Matthew Shook and Jose Alanis were both forced to make 1 v. 1 stops on Grabowski before the 13th minute, but that didn't stop the sophomore. He broke free for two scores in the 15th minute to start the Gators' goal parade.
Woodstock tried to muster an attack but had little success. Its first shot on goal was a one-bouncer from distance from Jose Gonzalez in the 18th minute. Crystal Lake South keeper Dalton Kause handled it easily.
Crystal Lake South made it 3-0 when Charlie Ruff dribbled through two defenders on the left side before slotting the ball inside the right post from 18 yards out at 22 minutes. He was followed on the score sheet two minutes later by Julio Campos.
Woodstock's Gonzalez continued to display an impressive work rate with a 40-yard run down the left side that led to a Blue Streaks throw-in. Shook's toss went through the box, but there were no teammates to cash in on the golden chance.
Gonzalez tried to cut into the lead on a 25-yard free kick in the 33rd minute, but his far-side, upper-90 attempt was denied by Kause.
Crystal Lake South followed with an Andrew Perrine score in front off a scramble in the 37th minute to give the hosts a 5-0 lead at the break.
After the intermission, the Gators picked up where they left off. Grabowski, still stung from the earlier foul, completed his hat trick two minutes into the second half.
"I was kind of mad because I thought I had a chance to go in and score," Grabowski said of the play early in the game. "It did make me play harder because I really wanted it back.
"This gave us a chance to play the way that we need to play and work on some things that we need to work on."
Tapia, Nikolas Getzinger and Stefan Harris closed out the scoring for the Gators (6-2-1).
Allen credited his entire team for a consistant and solid effort.
"We don't want to train any bad habits, so we have the mentality that we're going to play as hard as we can for as long as we can and the score will sort itself out," he said.
"We put in players in the second half and the level stayed high. I'm not gonna fault that. It's hard to tell a kid who's only gotten 10 minutes in the past couple of weeks to not go out there and play the game the right way."
For Woodstock (2-10), it would have been hard for the game to turn out any other way, given the tough hand dealt to the Blue Streaks and their coach Mike Golda.
"We've had three concussions over the past week, we've got a knee injury, yeah we've been pretty beat up," said Golda, whose 15 players on the bench included four call-ups. "It seems my top seven or eight players have the injury bug. So it's been a learning process for those guys."
To further put this stretch of the season in the "If I didn't have bad luck ... " file, Golda's only healthy goalie was lost when his physical was not kept current. That gave the nod to sophomore Presisto, who had almost no experience at the position. He went on to provided one of the few highlights in the game for Woodstock. Without him the score could have easily been 9-0 in the first half.
"I think I did fine. It was fun," said the sophomore surprise starter. "We need to learn to mark up, because we haven't been doing that the last couple of games. We're still young. We have a bunch of sophomores, and we're still developing. We just need to practice more and take it more seriously."
Golda has been working on the problems exposed by injuries and inexperience.
"Once that first ball goes in (against us), they start to play me ball, instead of team ball," he said. "And I've been trying to fix that for the past three weeks. One-, two-touch, they know how to play it.
"Definitely they've let the snowball effect come into play this season. I know we will learn from this adversity, and they're going to have to learn how to come together. I had to make two sophomores captains this year."
The Gators extended their unbeaten string to six with the win, but they have their eyes on bigger things. They travel to play West Aurora, Hersey and tournament host Hononegah this weekend before starting their league schedule against Jacobs on Sept. 23.
Senior co-captain Charlie Ruff is ready for Fox Valley Valley Division play.
"We're getting excited for conference," said the four-year varsity player. "There's a whole new game. The intensity is a lot more, all the games mean a lot more. It's not just about playing well, it's about getting results, and that leads to the playoffs where it's one-and-done.
"We've had a lot of good teams (at Crystal Lake South), but this team is the most complete. We're overall top to bottom really well rounded, and we play well together. So I think as a total group we play the best soccer that I've been here for."
Coach Allen thinks this team can win the Gators' first conference title since 2010.
"This group showed a lot in our summer stuff," he said. "We went to the Iowa team camp, and they really came close together as a team. And when you have that and some special players who have been in the program four years (Ruff and Tapia) who let them know this is the expectation, guys ... it becomes infectious.
"They want to leave their stamp on the program."
Starting lineups
Woodstock
GK: Johnny Presisto
D: Eric Arias
D: Jared Warmbier
D: Miguel Carreno
D: Matthew Shook
MF: William Maidment
MF: Josue Carreno
MF: Jose Gonzalez
MF: Julio Arias
MF: Andy Dominquez
F: Miguel Rodriguez
Crystal Lake South
GK: Dalton Kause
D: Zach Schmidt
D: Kennan Grissom
D: Zach Bimbi
D: Andrew Perrine
MF: Ryan Russman
MF: Mike Woeste
MF: Orlando Tapia
MF: Julio Campos
MF: Charlie Ruff
F: Andrew Grabowski
Man of the Match: Andrew Grabowski, Crystal Lake South
Referees: Mike Schmickley (center); Andy Maratto; Mike Lichtfuss.