Deerfield 'owns' Grayslake North
Pair of own-goals lead to Warriors 4-3 nonconference win
By Tom Hamilton II
DEERFIELD -- One of the oldest sayings in sports is that you make your own luck.
On a steamy Saturday afternoon at Adams Field, Deerfield manufactured their fair share.
The host Warriors benefitted from a Grayslake North own-goal -- their second of the match -- late in the second half to break the deadlock and hand the hosts a 4-3 nonconference win over the Knights.
Deerfield’s senior defender Noah Weil, Chicagoland Soccer’s Man of the Match, was quick to note the role that fortune played in his team’s victory.
“Today we got really lucky,” Weil admitted.
Luck might have lent Deerfield (9-6-2) a helping hand for the eventual match winner, but the credit for the opening goal belonged solely to the Warriors.
In the sixth minute, the Warriors cleared the danger from a Grayslake North corner kick and raced forward on the counter. After Grayslake North’s senior goalkeeper Joseph Swambar (seven saves) parried an initial shot from sophomore Nathan Garcia, his strike partner, Matthew Neumann, nodded the rebound into the net from six yards to give the Warriors the early lead.
“[Junior midfielder] Ryder [Coleman] played a nice through-ball to me over the top,” explained Neumann, a physical, energetic junior. “I knew I couldn’t really control it and get it toward my feet and keep running with it.
“I saw Nathan Garcia running onto it, so I just tried heading the ball to him. He made an excellent run, trapped it, and got unlucky with the shot. It deflected off the keeper -- I just saw it pop up in the air, ran towards it, made sure to keep it down, and put it in the back of the net.”
That early lead lasted just three minutes before Grayslake North leveled the score with their first attempt on goal.
After Swambar did well to parry efforts from Deerfield’s Garcia and Neumann, the Knights broke on the counterattack and earned a throw-in about 10 yards from Deerfield's corner flag. Junior midfielder Emmanuel Juarez hurled a long throw towards the near post, where sophomore midfielder Gerardo Gongora got to it first and knocked it in from six yards to even the score.
That goal gave the Knights a sense of confidence, and they began to apply more persistent pressure on the Deerfield backline. That pressure paid off just minutes later.
After the Warriors prepared to build possession after collecting a Grayslake North long ball inside the Deerfield penalty area, a Deerfield defender prepared to send a pass upfield.
However, Grayslake North’s Gongora, a lively presence in attack throughout the afternoon, hustled to close down space and hurled his body in front of the attempted pass.
The deflection spilled to the side of the penalty area for Juarez, who slotted the ball across to the near post for senior forward Connor Johnson, who shot the ball underneath Deerfield’s senior goalkeeper Ryan Toback (two saves) to give the Knights a 2-1 lead in just the 15th minute.
“We came out firing, and they came out firing, too,” summarized Johnson, whose physicality and hold-up play kept the Deerfield backline busy all afternoon. “So, we just had to fight back.”
Unfortunately for the Knights, Deerfield was hardly down for the count. They delivered a haymaker of their own just one minute later.
The Warriors worked the ball and numbers upfield quickly after the restart. A cross led to a mad scramble in the penalty area and the ball landed at the feet of Deerfield sophomore Mason Greitens. The midfielder’s first touch was a light tap to senior defender Jack Wax, who smashed it into the back of the net from 10 yards out to bring the match even once again.
Despite the chaos of the moment, Wax, who tallied his second goal of the season, was able to make sense of it all after the match.
“The ball was going up the side,” Wax recounted. “I knew to hold my run. We got a nice cross. Unfortunately, we didn’t score on the first time, but I was there. The ball was played to me, and I put it in the back of the net.”
That goal fueled the Warriors with confidence and purpose. They used their momentum to pin back Grayslake North for much of the rest of the half.
The Warriors denied any space in the middle and launched a series of devastating counterattacks that kept Grayslake North’s shot-stopper Swambar busy. Pacey, dynamic junior midfielders James Weiner and Coleman produced some brilliant efforts in particular, each stripping Grayslake North defenders within their own half and flying forward over incredible distances to end up testing Swambar, who demonstrated tremendous courage in parrying away the Warriors’ efforts.
Meanwhile, the visitors were stymied in all attempts to possess the ball, so they were forced to play directly to Johnson. He repeatedly won aerial challenges and threw his imposing frame around to shield Deerfield’s defender off the ball while his teammates would join the attack. The Knights found it difficult to get past Deerfield’s defensive line of Weil, junior center back Jason Blumenthal, and sophomore Ethan Helfand.
Weil, who provided stellar defending with physical challenges and anticipation throughout the afternoon, noted that it took a team effort to deal with the physical demands of challenging Grayslake North’s senior Johnson.
“A lot if it is just using your body,” Weil explained. “Our center back, Justin Blumenthal, is really good with that. He was mostly playing on [Johnson], their big striker, the whole game, and he did a really good job locking him up.
“That guy was really physical. They tried to find him as the target man, and he did a really good job. Then he’d come over, and I’d switch onto him.”
Weil also praised Helfand for stifling the Knights’ wingers, denying them the space to serve crosses to their target man.
Grayslake North still held onto a tie late in the half after its only two shots on frame found the back of the net.
They’d find the net once again in the 34th minute, but unfortunately for them, this time the net was their own.
After a Knights defender was forced to make a desperate clearance after a Coleman effort, the Warriors had a throw-in outside the Grayslake North penalty area. Weil stepped up to take the throw, allowed his teammates to settle into their set piece routine, and hurled a bullet towards the near post. The ball skimmed off the top of a Knights defender’s head while he challenged a Warriors attacker, and the deflected ball crossed the goal line to give the Warriors a 3-2 lead, which they carried into halftime.
After the break, Grayslake North came out with pressure and purpose after the sucker punch from the third Deerfield goal.
Swambar credited a halftime speech from Grayslake North head coach Adam Decaluwe for the spark that ignited the Knights’ improvement at the start of the second half.
“[Try] to play with more purpose, start dictating games rather than having them dictated to us,” summarized Decaluwe about his message to his team.
The Knights created two half-chances for dynamic senior Owen Holevas in the opening minutes of the first half, He placed one wide and drew a sharp save from Toback on the other.
Grayslake North began closing down space more urgently and connecting more passes together in attack. Johnson earned several free kicks for the Knights. However, the Deerfield backline continued to cope with the danger admirably including a particularly impressive, last-second challenge from Weil on Knights junior striker Gavin Congalton’s 54th minute counterattack.
The visitors created another quality chance in the 64th minute after a few quick passes allowed Juarez to find space for a cross, but sophomore striker Leonel Rojas sent his first-time effort over the bar.
Rojas made amends in the 70th minute and earned the Knights the equalizer they had sought all half.
A textbook counterattack earned the goal. Holevas received the ball deep in his own half, picked his head up, and showed great vision in picking out sophomore winger Christopher Fabela high upfield. With his first touch, Fabela played it short for junior wingback Armen Jerikian, who fed Rojas with a precise pass that Rojas converted from just inside the penalty area.
The tie last only two minutes before Grayslake North would fell behind in a moment that must have felt like deja vu.
Deerfield rallied after the tying goal and earned another throw-in for Weil near the edge of the penalty area. Just as he did at roughly the same stage of the first half, Weil hurled the ball to the near post. Once again, a Knights defender flicked the ball backwards under pressure from his mark and sent the ball into his own net off the crossbar.
“I’m not going to act like that’s how we draw up our throw-ins,” Weil confessed. “Normally it’s supposed to be a flick off to the back post and someone else finishes it, but kudos to our offense for getting me into position up on the left wing where I can launch it into the box.”
That goal proved decisive as Deerfield saw out the rest of the match and earned head coach Elliott Hurtig -- who will retire at the end of the season after 20 years with the Warriors program -- a memorable win.
“When you can win a game when you’re not playing your best soccer, that’s a good sign,” Hurtig reflected. “Playoffs are feisty and scrappy. A team that can find a way to win -- like in a game like this -- it’s just great for them.
“Honestly, I give Grayslake North a lot of credit. I thought in the second half they came out, and they were just on us. They wanted the game more than we did in the second half, so it was nice to get some lucky goals. I give them a lot of credit because they fought really hard in the second half, and we were on our heels.”
Hurtig was particularly pleased with how his young Warriors rallied after a 4-0 defeat to Glenbrook North on Thursday.
“We wanted to start finding our rhythm and possessing the ball a little bit more, and trying to build towards the playoffs,” Hurtig explained. “We had a really good first half in our last game against Glenbrook North, but we kind of lost it in the second half.
“We wanted to kind of bounce back and play with some more composure on the ball. I thought we created a lot of chances in the first half, but we didn’t finish them.”
After an impressive outing in the Grayslake North net, Swambar rued his team’s miscommunication at costly moments.
“We started off kind of slow,” said Swambar. “We conceded a lot of shots to start the game, lots of fast breaks, and ultimately we got punished for a few of them. Our marking was off and communication was off. Therefore, we had the own-goals, and that’s what ultimately hurt us.”
Coach Decaluwe agreed with his senior.
“Second half we did better but got caught on the counterattack trying to go forward and get back in the game,” Decaluwe reflected. “Then we get back into the game, and we lose concentration defensively again. We’ve shown signs, but no consistency.”
After the match, the Warriors stuck around to enjoy pizza and honor their head coach for his 20 years of service. The pizza -- and the win -- had to leave the Deerfield skipper feeling pretty good, but he noted that that his Warriors still have work to be done if they want to make a deep run in the Class AA playoffs.
“The main thing is we need to play with a little more organization in the back, win our balls in the air more and then find feet,” Hurtig noted. “We’re just not connecting passes like we need to. We need to get a little more shape and composure on the ball.”
Deerfield figures to be looking for a game this week to help it prepare for the playoffs. It’s previously scheduled home game against Payton on Tuesday won’t happen – the Grizzlies battle Lane that night in the Chicago Public League semifinals.
Grayslake North will host hometown neighbors Westlake on Tuesday.
Starting lineups
Grayslake North (4-3-3)
GK Joseph Swambar
D Armen Jerikian
D Bryce Stoneham
D Carlos Chavez
D Cooper Perhacs
M Owen Holevas
M Will Verber
M Eduardo Bethancourt Hernandez
F Gavin Congalton
F Connor Johnson
F Ilija Dupor
Deerfield (3-5-2)
GK Ryan Toback
D Ethan Helfand
D Justin Blumenthal
D Noah Weil
M Addison Simon
M Cole Gawin
M Ryder Coleman
M Andrew Babos
M James Weiner
F Nathan Garcia
F Matthew Neumann
Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match: Noah Weil, sr., D, Deerfield
Scoring summary
First half
Deerfield: Matthew Neumann (unassisted), 6th minute
Grayslake North: Gerardo Gongora (Emmanuel Juarez), 11th minute
Grayslake North: Connor Johnson (Emmanuel Juarez), 15th minute
Deerfield: Jack Wax (Mason Greitens), 16th minute
Deerfield: Grayslake North own-goal, 34th minute
Second half
Grayslake North: Leonel Rojas (Armen Jerikian), 70th minute
Deerfield: Grayslake North own-goal, 72nd minute
Pair of own-goals lead to Warriors 4-3 nonconference win
By Tom Hamilton II
DEERFIELD -- One of the oldest sayings in sports is that you make your own luck.
On a steamy Saturday afternoon at Adams Field, Deerfield manufactured their fair share.
The host Warriors benefitted from a Grayslake North own-goal -- their second of the match -- late in the second half to break the deadlock and hand the hosts a 4-3 nonconference win over the Knights.
Deerfield’s senior defender Noah Weil, Chicagoland Soccer’s Man of the Match, was quick to note the role that fortune played in his team’s victory.
“Today we got really lucky,” Weil admitted.
Luck might have lent Deerfield (9-6-2) a helping hand for the eventual match winner, but the credit for the opening goal belonged solely to the Warriors.
In the sixth minute, the Warriors cleared the danger from a Grayslake North corner kick and raced forward on the counter. After Grayslake North’s senior goalkeeper Joseph Swambar (seven saves) parried an initial shot from sophomore Nathan Garcia, his strike partner, Matthew Neumann, nodded the rebound into the net from six yards to give the Warriors the early lead.
“[Junior midfielder] Ryder [Coleman] played a nice through-ball to me over the top,” explained Neumann, a physical, energetic junior. “I knew I couldn’t really control it and get it toward my feet and keep running with it.
“I saw Nathan Garcia running onto it, so I just tried heading the ball to him. He made an excellent run, trapped it, and got unlucky with the shot. It deflected off the keeper -- I just saw it pop up in the air, ran towards it, made sure to keep it down, and put it in the back of the net.”
That early lead lasted just three minutes before Grayslake North leveled the score with their first attempt on goal.
After Swambar did well to parry efforts from Deerfield’s Garcia and Neumann, the Knights broke on the counterattack and earned a throw-in about 10 yards from Deerfield's corner flag. Junior midfielder Emmanuel Juarez hurled a long throw towards the near post, where sophomore midfielder Gerardo Gongora got to it first and knocked it in from six yards to even the score.
That goal gave the Knights a sense of confidence, and they began to apply more persistent pressure on the Deerfield backline. That pressure paid off just minutes later.
After the Warriors prepared to build possession after collecting a Grayslake North long ball inside the Deerfield penalty area, a Deerfield defender prepared to send a pass upfield.
However, Grayslake North’s Gongora, a lively presence in attack throughout the afternoon, hustled to close down space and hurled his body in front of the attempted pass.
The deflection spilled to the side of the penalty area for Juarez, who slotted the ball across to the near post for senior forward Connor Johnson, who shot the ball underneath Deerfield’s senior goalkeeper Ryan Toback (two saves) to give the Knights a 2-1 lead in just the 15th minute.
“We came out firing, and they came out firing, too,” summarized Johnson, whose physicality and hold-up play kept the Deerfield backline busy all afternoon. “So, we just had to fight back.”
Unfortunately for the Knights, Deerfield was hardly down for the count. They delivered a haymaker of their own just one minute later.
The Warriors worked the ball and numbers upfield quickly after the restart. A cross led to a mad scramble in the penalty area and the ball landed at the feet of Deerfield sophomore Mason Greitens. The midfielder’s first touch was a light tap to senior defender Jack Wax, who smashed it into the back of the net from 10 yards out to bring the match even once again.
Despite the chaos of the moment, Wax, who tallied his second goal of the season, was able to make sense of it all after the match.
“The ball was going up the side,” Wax recounted. “I knew to hold my run. We got a nice cross. Unfortunately, we didn’t score on the first time, but I was there. The ball was played to me, and I put it in the back of the net.”
That goal fueled the Warriors with confidence and purpose. They used their momentum to pin back Grayslake North for much of the rest of the half.
The Warriors denied any space in the middle and launched a series of devastating counterattacks that kept Grayslake North’s shot-stopper Swambar busy. Pacey, dynamic junior midfielders James Weiner and Coleman produced some brilliant efforts in particular, each stripping Grayslake North defenders within their own half and flying forward over incredible distances to end up testing Swambar, who demonstrated tremendous courage in parrying away the Warriors’ efforts.
Meanwhile, the visitors were stymied in all attempts to possess the ball, so they were forced to play directly to Johnson. He repeatedly won aerial challenges and threw his imposing frame around to shield Deerfield’s defender off the ball while his teammates would join the attack. The Knights found it difficult to get past Deerfield’s defensive line of Weil, junior center back Jason Blumenthal, and sophomore Ethan Helfand.
Weil, who provided stellar defending with physical challenges and anticipation throughout the afternoon, noted that it took a team effort to deal with the physical demands of challenging Grayslake North’s senior Johnson.
“A lot if it is just using your body,” Weil explained. “Our center back, Justin Blumenthal, is really good with that. He was mostly playing on [Johnson], their big striker, the whole game, and he did a really good job locking him up.
“That guy was really physical. They tried to find him as the target man, and he did a really good job. Then he’d come over, and I’d switch onto him.”
Weil also praised Helfand for stifling the Knights’ wingers, denying them the space to serve crosses to their target man.
Grayslake North still held onto a tie late in the half after its only two shots on frame found the back of the net.
They’d find the net once again in the 34th minute, but unfortunately for them, this time the net was their own.
After a Knights defender was forced to make a desperate clearance after a Coleman effort, the Warriors had a throw-in outside the Grayslake North penalty area. Weil stepped up to take the throw, allowed his teammates to settle into their set piece routine, and hurled a bullet towards the near post. The ball skimmed off the top of a Knights defender’s head while he challenged a Warriors attacker, and the deflected ball crossed the goal line to give the Warriors a 3-2 lead, which they carried into halftime.
After the break, Grayslake North came out with pressure and purpose after the sucker punch from the third Deerfield goal.
Swambar credited a halftime speech from Grayslake North head coach Adam Decaluwe for the spark that ignited the Knights’ improvement at the start of the second half.
“[Try] to play with more purpose, start dictating games rather than having them dictated to us,” summarized Decaluwe about his message to his team.
The Knights created two half-chances for dynamic senior Owen Holevas in the opening minutes of the first half, He placed one wide and drew a sharp save from Toback on the other.
Grayslake North began closing down space more urgently and connecting more passes together in attack. Johnson earned several free kicks for the Knights. However, the Deerfield backline continued to cope with the danger admirably including a particularly impressive, last-second challenge from Weil on Knights junior striker Gavin Congalton’s 54th minute counterattack.
The visitors created another quality chance in the 64th minute after a few quick passes allowed Juarez to find space for a cross, but sophomore striker Leonel Rojas sent his first-time effort over the bar.
Rojas made amends in the 70th minute and earned the Knights the equalizer they had sought all half.
A textbook counterattack earned the goal. Holevas received the ball deep in his own half, picked his head up, and showed great vision in picking out sophomore winger Christopher Fabela high upfield. With his first touch, Fabela played it short for junior wingback Armen Jerikian, who fed Rojas with a precise pass that Rojas converted from just inside the penalty area.
The tie last only two minutes before Grayslake North would fell behind in a moment that must have felt like deja vu.
Deerfield rallied after the tying goal and earned another throw-in for Weil near the edge of the penalty area. Just as he did at roughly the same stage of the first half, Weil hurled the ball to the near post. Once again, a Knights defender flicked the ball backwards under pressure from his mark and sent the ball into his own net off the crossbar.
“I’m not going to act like that’s how we draw up our throw-ins,” Weil confessed. “Normally it’s supposed to be a flick off to the back post and someone else finishes it, but kudos to our offense for getting me into position up on the left wing where I can launch it into the box.”
That goal proved decisive as Deerfield saw out the rest of the match and earned head coach Elliott Hurtig -- who will retire at the end of the season after 20 years with the Warriors program -- a memorable win.
“When you can win a game when you’re not playing your best soccer, that’s a good sign,” Hurtig reflected. “Playoffs are feisty and scrappy. A team that can find a way to win -- like in a game like this -- it’s just great for them.
“Honestly, I give Grayslake North a lot of credit. I thought in the second half they came out, and they were just on us. They wanted the game more than we did in the second half, so it was nice to get some lucky goals. I give them a lot of credit because they fought really hard in the second half, and we were on our heels.”
Hurtig was particularly pleased with how his young Warriors rallied after a 4-0 defeat to Glenbrook North on Thursday.
“We wanted to start finding our rhythm and possessing the ball a little bit more, and trying to build towards the playoffs,” Hurtig explained. “We had a really good first half in our last game against Glenbrook North, but we kind of lost it in the second half.
“We wanted to kind of bounce back and play with some more composure on the ball. I thought we created a lot of chances in the first half, but we didn’t finish them.”
After an impressive outing in the Grayslake North net, Swambar rued his team’s miscommunication at costly moments.
“We started off kind of slow,” said Swambar. “We conceded a lot of shots to start the game, lots of fast breaks, and ultimately we got punished for a few of them. Our marking was off and communication was off. Therefore, we had the own-goals, and that’s what ultimately hurt us.”
Coach Decaluwe agreed with his senior.
“Second half we did better but got caught on the counterattack trying to go forward and get back in the game,” Decaluwe reflected. “Then we get back into the game, and we lose concentration defensively again. We’ve shown signs, but no consistency.”
After the match, the Warriors stuck around to enjoy pizza and honor their head coach for his 20 years of service. The pizza -- and the win -- had to leave the Deerfield skipper feeling pretty good, but he noted that that his Warriors still have work to be done if they want to make a deep run in the Class AA playoffs.
“The main thing is we need to play with a little more organization in the back, win our balls in the air more and then find feet,” Hurtig noted. “We’re just not connecting passes like we need to. We need to get a little more shape and composure on the ball.”
Deerfield figures to be looking for a game this week to help it prepare for the playoffs. It’s previously scheduled home game against Payton on Tuesday won’t happen – the Grizzlies battle Lane that night in the Chicago Public League semifinals.
Grayslake North will host hometown neighbors Westlake on Tuesday.
Starting lineups
Grayslake North (4-3-3)
GK Joseph Swambar
D Armen Jerikian
D Bryce Stoneham
D Carlos Chavez
D Cooper Perhacs
M Owen Holevas
M Will Verber
M Eduardo Bethancourt Hernandez
F Gavin Congalton
F Connor Johnson
F Ilija Dupor
Deerfield (3-5-2)
GK Ryan Toback
D Ethan Helfand
D Justin Blumenthal
D Noah Weil
M Addison Simon
M Cole Gawin
M Ryder Coleman
M Andrew Babos
M James Weiner
F Nathan Garcia
F Matthew Neumann
Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match: Noah Weil, sr., D, Deerfield
Scoring summary
First half
Deerfield: Matthew Neumann (unassisted), 6th minute
Grayslake North: Gerardo Gongora (Emmanuel Juarez), 11th minute
Grayslake North: Connor Johnson (Emmanuel Juarez), 15th minute
Deerfield: Jack Wax (Mason Greitens), 16th minute
Deerfield: Grayslake North own-goal, 34th minute
Second half
Grayslake North: Leonel Rojas (Armen Jerikian), 70th minute
Deerfield: Grayslake North own-goal, 72nd minute