SCN's 2nd half flourish does in Kaneland
Beaulieu scores twice to lead North Stars to 5-1 road win
By Chris Walker
MAPLE PARK -- Last year there was a lot of talk of unity and brotherhood at St. Charles North.
There was also a heck of a lot of fantastic soccer being played by the North Stars, and it resulted in an unprecedented year that took them all the way to Hoffman Estates and the state finals where they came home with the Class 3A fourth place trophy.
It was a team that seemed to simply ooze team chemistry like no other. And while the journey didn’t end with a coveted state championship, the ride was an unforgettable one.
This is a new year, but the North Stars, with a new cast of characters replacing star forwards Jake Persenico and Bernard Elegbede, defenders Kyle Kolodziej and Peter Willis and goalkeeper Piercarlo Ricossa among others, appear ready for the challenge that lies ahead.
Well, at least, they certainly showed it on Saturday morning when they rolled past Kaneland, 5-1.
“So far so good, and it’s a new identity for this group,” North Stars coach Eric Willson said. “I think the way that we are, there’s always connections to the past and to our future with the way our program runs. So we still have the connection with last year’s group.
“But again, this team wants to create a name for themselves. It’s a lot of new faces and new guys in different spots, but that’s what this regular season is all about.”
Kaneland (0-2-0) challenged the North Stars, which began the season situated 10th in the Chicagoland Soccer Preseason Top 25 poll, for about the first 50 minutes.
“Unfortunately the game is 80 minutes long, and this seems to happen every year against them,” Knights coach Scott Parillo said. “We’re tied 1-1 at halftime and somehow the wheels fall off or their depth takes over or something like that. If we could’ve stopped at 48 minutes we could’ve walked out of here happy campers.”
St. Charles North newcomer Faizan Mohiuddin caught up with Gabriel D’Amico’s cross with 23:30 remaining in the first half, lunging in front of the net to get a foot on it and then depositing it into the net for his first varisty goal.
Mohiuddin played on the JV squad a season ago as a sophomore.
“Coach has been telling us to hang out at the back post and wait for a good opportunity,” he said. “That’s where I was waiting, and I caught my defender sleeping a bit. So I snuck in behind him and took my opportunity.”
He hopes to have more opportunities like that one, especially as he watched the North Stars go so far from afar last fall.
“Obviously they went the furthest in program history so we spent last year looking up to them and knew it would be a big task this year to try to get back to where they were,” he said. “The seniors that graduated last year were good mentors. They taught us the right way to play, and that’s how we’re trying to play.”
Kaneland made things interesting with 15:37 left in the opening half as freshman Cade Ory was in the right place at the right time to follow in a shot attempt from Alex Bass. It was first batted down by North Stars keeper Bobby Curran but not out of harm’s way.
“We’ve been telling him to crash, crash, crash, and he crashed,” Parillo said. “That’s good so it sounds like some of them are listening to us, so we’re doing something right.”
Joshua Amaro, Matthew Beaulieu, Nate Hanselman, Logan Michels and Thomas Weber continued to frustrate Kaneland’s defense, getting past them and peppering goalkeeper Maison Kerl with shot attempts, but the junior was able to deny their attempts or watch them sail just off target for the remainder of the first half.
“It was a frustrating first half for us, because we had plenty of chances. They only had a few, but they scored off one,” Beaulieu said. “It feels a little unlucky, but they played hard in the first half. I don’t think they could keep up with us in the second half, and eventually our chances started to fall.”
Beaulieu, the Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match, took matters into his own hands in the second half, scoring twice in about a seven-minute span. First he showed poise and a beautiful touch. His free kick lofted over Kaneland’s defender wall and just out of reach of the leaping Kerl to make it 2-1.
Then, midway through the second half, he let his left foot doing the talking when he sent a scorcher past Kerl to increase the lead to 3-1.
“The kid is not too bad with that left foot,” Willson said. “He’s got a decent left foot on him and when you can return some key pieces from a successful year like last year, I think that’s a good starting point for helping the newer guys along. Guys like him, Josh Amaro and Parker Kolb and guys like that coming back and being able to play is really helpful.”
Beaulieu said his approach isn’t any different this year from last, despite him being one of the top returnees and having lost some really good players from last year.
“What we’ve talked about when we had a couple meetings at the beginning of the year was our focus,” he said. “We’re going to have to play whomever is on the other side, and we’ll look at scouting reports, and we’ll talk a little bit about the dangers that team will bring. But to us we’re just going to play that team on the other side and focus on what we need to do to win.”
And that includes doing it with contributions from guys who weren’t contributing a season ago, some of whom weren’t even on the team last fall. That includes Mohiuddin as well as senior Adam Bear, who put an exclamation point on the decisive victory with a breakaway goal with 20 seconds left to play.
“So many of these guys have shown improvement from the club season, because they weren’t this good last year as they are now,” Beaulieu said. “We’ve had a lot of position changes, and I think everything has worked well. We’re very talented, but more importantly we’re working together. We all like each other as a team, and we’re all friends off the field, and I think it shows on the field with how we move around each other and the way we pass.”
That movement spelled doom for the Kaneland, which didn’t respond to Parillo’s instructions to stop giving up “too much space.”
“We gave them too much space and either everybody drops back or you’ve got to move forward,” he said. “You can’t leave all of that area, because a good team is going to do that to you and good teams are going to make you pay, and that’s what we want to be. We want to be that good team that when you screw up, you’re going to pay for it, and that’s a good team we played.”
Parillo was hollering at the Knights about the space issue when the North Stars were taking a corner kick with just under 22 minutes left to play. Beaulieu located D’Amico who blasted a shot that touched off the inner half of the right post and caromed into the back of the net to make it 4-1.
“It’s early in the season, and I think we have expectations of putting 80 minutes, a better 80 minutes, together,” Willson said. “We’d like to improve on our start. I think hat’s off to Kaneland. For us to come into this place, this great field, good facility and a hardworking team ,and I don’t want to take anything away from (Kaneland), but I don’t think we played our best in the first half, but we made some adjustments for the second half.”
While such a stellar second half may make it easy to forget missed opportunities in the opening half, the North Stars know they have to be better than that, especially as the games get tougher and the number of scoring chances are reduced.
“Coach has reminded us that we’ve been kind of flat in the first half,” Mohiuddin said. “We know we have to come out and start better, and that’s what we’re going to try to do next time.”
As far as that unity and brotherhood that’s become such an asset of the program, the North Stars continue to head in the right direction.
“We’re going to be spending a lot of time with each other and coach makes sure of that,” Beaulieu said. “We’ve already had some team get-togethers so it’s good. I like to be around these guys.”
Last year the North Stars also beat the Knights, 5-1, although that victory came in St. Charles on the team’s new turf.
While the last two final scores have been lopsided, the meeting of these two local teams has proven beneficial. The Class AA Knights, who finished 16-4-3 last season, enjoyed a 16-game unbeaten streak before their season ended in sectional play.
“For us, this is the way we start our season,” Parillo said. “We always front-load the schedule, and it forces us to raise our level of play. If we don’t then we’re going to get smacked around.
“I’ll put our schedule up against just about anybody in the area, especially for a AA school. It paid off last year, and we’re hoping it pays off again this year. We’ll see what happens. We’ve got Batavia on Tuesday and West Aurora on Wednesday, and I don’t know who we’re playing after that, but I’m sure it’s going to be tough.”
That will be Morris on Sept. 6 in their conference opener.
St. Charles North returns to action Monday against Leyden in the opening round of the new St. Charles Tournament.
Starting lineups
St. Charles North
GK: Bobby Curran
D: Drew Balster
D: Joey Sommer
D: Nicky Sommer
D: Vito Lagioia
MF: Joshua Amaro
MF: Gabriel D’Amico
MF: Parker Kolb
MF: Thomas Weber
F: Logan Michels
F: Matthew Beaulieu
Kaneland
GK: Maison Kerl
D: Erick Barragan
D: Alex Bass
D: Dylan Bock
D: Tyler Chapman
MF: Connor Bottorff
MF: Gavin Cano
MF: Alex Dhom
MF: Allen Dominguez
F: Tucker Jahns
F: Garret Robinson
Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match: Matthew Beaulieu, sr., F, St. Charles North
Scoring Summary
First half
St. Charles North: Faizan Mohiuddin (Gabriel D’Amico) 23:30
Kaneland: Cade Ory (Alex Bass) 15:37
Second half
St. Charles North: Matthew Beaulieu (u/a) 31:28
St. Charles North: Matthew Beaulieu (u/a) 24:34
St. Charles North: Gabriel D’Amico (Beaulieu) 21:58
St. Charles North: Adam Bear (u/a) 0:20
Beaulieu scores twice to lead North Stars to 5-1 road win
By Chris Walker
MAPLE PARK -- Last year there was a lot of talk of unity and brotherhood at St. Charles North.
There was also a heck of a lot of fantastic soccer being played by the North Stars, and it resulted in an unprecedented year that took them all the way to Hoffman Estates and the state finals where they came home with the Class 3A fourth place trophy.
It was a team that seemed to simply ooze team chemistry like no other. And while the journey didn’t end with a coveted state championship, the ride was an unforgettable one.
This is a new year, but the North Stars, with a new cast of characters replacing star forwards Jake Persenico and Bernard Elegbede, defenders Kyle Kolodziej and Peter Willis and goalkeeper Piercarlo Ricossa among others, appear ready for the challenge that lies ahead.
Well, at least, they certainly showed it on Saturday morning when they rolled past Kaneland, 5-1.
“So far so good, and it’s a new identity for this group,” North Stars coach Eric Willson said. “I think the way that we are, there’s always connections to the past and to our future with the way our program runs. So we still have the connection with last year’s group.
“But again, this team wants to create a name for themselves. It’s a lot of new faces and new guys in different spots, but that’s what this regular season is all about.”
Kaneland (0-2-0) challenged the North Stars, which began the season situated 10th in the Chicagoland Soccer Preseason Top 25 poll, for about the first 50 minutes.
“Unfortunately the game is 80 minutes long, and this seems to happen every year against them,” Knights coach Scott Parillo said. “We’re tied 1-1 at halftime and somehow the wheels fall off or their depth takes over or something like that. If we could’ve stopped at 48 minutes we could’ve walked out of here happy campers.”
St. Charles North newcomer Faizan Mohiuddin caught up with Gabriel D’Amico’s cross with 23:30 remaining in the first half, lunging in front of the net to get a foot on it and then depositing it into the net for his first varisty goal.
Mohiuddin played on the JV squad a season ago as a sophomore.
“Coach has been telling us to hang out at the back post and wait for a good opportunity,” he said. “That’s where I was waiting, and I caught my defender sleeping a bit. So I snuck in behind him and took my opportunity.”
He hopes to have more opportunities like that one, especially as he watched the North Stars go so far from afar last fall.
“Obviously they went the furthest in program history so we spent last year looking up to them and knew it would be a big task this year to try to get back to where they were,” he said. “The seniors that graduated last year were good mentors. They taught us the right way to play, and that’s how we’re trying to play.”
Kaneland made things interesting with 15:37 left in the opening half as freshman Cade Ory was in the right place at the right time to follow in a shot attempt from Alex Bass. It was first batted down by North Stars keeper Bobby Curran but not out of harm’s way.
“We’ve been telling him to crash, crash, crash, and he crashed,” Parillo said. “That’s good so it sounds like some of them are listening to us, so we’re doing something right.”
Joshua Amaro, Matthew Beaulieu, Nate Hanselman, Logan Michels and Thomas Weber continued to frustrate Kaneland’s defense, getting past them and peppering goalkeeper Maison Kerl with shot attempts, but the junior was able to deny their attempts or watch them sail just off target for the remainder of the first half.
“It was a frustrating first half for us, because we had plenty of chances. They only had a few, but they scored off one,” Beaulieu said. “It feels a little unlucky, but they played hard in the first half. I don’t think they could keep up with us in the second half, and eventually our chances started to fall.”
Beaulieu, the Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match, took matters into his own hands in the second half, scoring twice in about a seven-minute span. First he showed poise and a beautiful touch. His free kick lofted over Kaneland’s defender wall and just out of reach of the leaping Kerl to make it 2-1.
Then, midway through the second half, he let his left foot doing the talking when he sent a scorcher past Kerl to increase the lead to 3-1.
“The kid is not too bad with that left foot,” Willson said. “He’s got a decent left foot on him and when you can return some key pieces from a successful year like last year, I think that’s a good starting point for helping the newer guys along. Guys like him, Josh Amaro and Parker Kolb and guys like that coming back and being able to play is really helpful.”
Beaulieu said his approach isn’t any different this year from last, despite him being one of the top returnees and having lost some really good players from last year.
“What we’ve talked about when we had a couple meetings at the beginning of the year was our focus,” he said. “We’re going to have to play whomever is on the other side, and we’ll look at scouting reports, and we’ll talk a little bit about the dangers that team will bring. But to us we’re just going to play that team on the other side and focus on what we need to do to win.”
And that includes doing it with contributions from guys who weren’t contributing a season ago, some of whom weren’t even on the team last fall. That includes Mohiuddin as well as senior Adam Bear, who put an exclamation point on the decisive victory with a breakaway goal with 20 seconds left to play.
“So many of these guys have shown improvement from the club season, because they weren’t this good last year as they are now,” Beaulieu said. “We’ve had a lot of position changes, and I think everything has worked well. We’re very talented, but more importantly we’re working together. We all like each other as a team, and we’re all friends off the field, and I think it shows on the field with how we move around each other and the way we pass.”
That movement spelled doom for the Kaneland, which didn’t respond to Parillo’s instructions to stop giving up “too much space.”
“We gave them too much space and either everybody drops back or you’ve got to move forward,” he said. “You can’t leave all of that area, because a good team is going to do that to you and good teams are going to make you pay, and that’s what we want to be. We want to be that good team that when you screw up, you’re going to pay for it, and that’s a good team we played.”
Parillo was hollering at the Knights about the space issue when the North Stars were taking a corner kick with just under 22 minutes left to play. Beaulieu located D’Amico who blasted a shot that touched off the inner half of the right post and caromed into the back of the net to make it 4-1.
“It’s early in the season, and I think we have expectations of putting 80 minutes, a better 80 minutes, together,” Willson said. “We’d like to improve on our start. I think hat’s off to Kaneland. For us to come into this place, this great field, good facility and a hardworking team ,and I don’t want to take anything away from (Kaneland), but I don’t think we played our best in the first half, but we made some adjustments for the second half.”
While such a stellar second half may make it easy to forget missed opportunities in the opening half, the North Stars know they have to be better than that, especially as the games get tougher and the number of scoring chances are reduced.
“Coach has reminded us that we’ve been kind of flat in the first half,” Mohiuddin said. “We know we have to come out and start better, and that’s what we’re going to try to do next time.”
As far as that unity and brotherhood that’s become such an asset of the program, the North Stars continue to head in the right direction.
“We’re going to be spending a lot of time with each other and coach makes sure of that,” Beaulieu said. “We’ve already had some team get-togethers so it’s good. I like to be around these guys.”
Last year the North Stars also beat the Knights, 5-1, although that victory came in St. Charles on the team’s new turf.
While the last two final scores have been lopsided, the meeting of these two local teams has proven beneficial. The Class AA Knights, who finished 16-4-3 last season, enjoyed a 16-game unbeaten streak before their season ended in sectional play.
“For us, this is the way we start our season,” Parillo said. “We always front-load the schedule, and it forces us to raise our level of play. If we don’t then we’re going to get smacked around.
“I’ll put our schedule up against just about anybody in the area, especially for a AA school. It paid off last year, and we’re hoping it pays off again this year. We’ll see what happens. We’ve got Batavia on Tuesday and West Aurora on Wednesday, and I don’t know who we’re playing after that, but I’m sure it’s going to be tough.”
That will be Morris on Sept. 6 in their conference opener.
St. Charles North returns to action Monday against Leyden in the opening round of the new St. Charles Tournament.
Starting lineups
St. Charles North
GK: Bobby Curran
D: Drew Balster
D: Joey Sommer
D: Nicky Sommer
D: Vito Lagioia
MF: Joshua Amaro
MF: Gabriel D’Amico
MF: Parker Kolb
MF: Thomas Weber
F: Logan Michels
F: Matthew Beaulieu
Kaneland
GK: Maison Kerl
D: Erick Barragan
D: Alex Bass
D: Dylan Bock
D: Tyler Chapman
MF: Connor Bottorff
MF: Gavin Cano
MF: Alex Dhom
MF: Allen Dominguez
F: Tucker Jahns
F: Garret Robinson
Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match: Matthew Beaulieu, sr., F, St. Charles North
Scoring Summary
First half
St. Charles North: Faizan Mohiuddin (Gabriel D’Amico) 23:30
Kaneland: Cade Ory (Alex Bass) 15:37
Second half
St. Charles North: Matthew Beaulieu (u/a) 31:28
St. Charles North: Matthew Beaulieu (u/a) 24:34
St. Charles North: Gabriel D’Amico (Beaulieu) 21:58
St. Charles North: Adam Bear (u/a) 0:20