Buffalo Grove, Glenbard East battle to 1-1 draw
Hugo Aguilar struck 40 seconds from time to help Glenbard East earn a 1-1 draw with Buffalo Grove on Thursday afternoon as the 20th annual Lancer Classic at Lake Park got under way.
The Rams sophomore came away from a scrum near the spot and his shot went under Bison keeper Nick Landsberger to pull Josh Adler’s club even in dramatic style in its season opener.
“We haven’t had very good luck in this tournament during the past couple of years, so it this is a very good way for us to begin the tournament and our season — and hopefully we can take this exciting finish as a positive and go forward from here,” said Adler, whose Rams meet Niles West on Saturday at 9:30 a.m. as Classic pool play continues.
For the Bison (0-0-2), who fought to a 3-3 deadlock with Evanston earlier in the week in their opener, Aguilar’s late goal delivered a nasty sting to first-year coach Rick Carlson.
He felt his lads deserved a better fate after a strong second half of soccer which saw BG create several chances — but the Bison were unable to finish.
“We generated some quality opportunities, especially in the second half, while we limited them to literally nothing until the very end,” Carlson said. “We didn’t put any of those chances away and they did, and that’s the way it goes sometime.”
Both sides had early chances inside five minutes, with the Rams’ Freddy Ibarra hitting the woodwork in the fourth minute and Bison captain Markus Fiordaliso unloading a 35-yard cracker that crashed off the bar moments after the Ibarra strike.
“We’ve got to do better than we did at defending a lead, but there are so many good things about this team this year to talk about, including our work ethic and the enviroment during training and our games,” said Fiordaliso, an all-Mid-Suburban League player last season. “We all know that we’ll get better as we go along, as we look to meet one of our goals, and that’s to win the MSL East and play in the Soccer Cup.”
Demo Drakoulis gave the Bison the lead at 21 minutes after Alberto Eloyza provided the helper with a nice piece of work that allowed his teammate to beat Rams keeper Cody Hallcox after he came off his line to cut down the angle.
Hallcox was superb later in the match, stopping a couple of would-be goals from in close.
Just before the break, Ibarra nearly redirected past Landsberger following a free kick from Kyle Ricely — but the Rams junior striker went wide of the near post.
“In that first half, you could tell this was our first game of the year, but later on, I thought our MF had more of a presence in the match, and that we actually defended better with three in the back instead of four,” Adler said.
Irving Eloyza, who was an all-MSL star MF for Wheeling last year and a late transfer to the Bison, proved to be a vibrant presence in the middle of the park. His searing free kick at 48 minutes through the Rams wall was alertly saved by Hallcox.
Hallcox later stopped Alec Faehnrich at point-blank range, while Eloyza went over the bar as he attempted to steer his shot from in close.
Mike Hansen helped the cause in the 80th minute — and Aguilar calmly scored the equalizer.
“There were things that we all learned from this match today, but I still thought we did some very good things as we played a little different of a style because of what our opponent was doing,” said Carlson, whose Bison meet the host Lancers at 11:30 a.m. Saturday.