Fremd knocks out Lake Forest
In a breathtaking 60 minutes of boys soccer, No. 4 Fremd seed topped No. 5 Lake Forest with a pair of sensational long-range strikes Friday night, eliminating the North Suburban Conference champs from postseason play.
Nick Tambellini and Brian Hindle provided nearly perfect finishes, while the Vikings defense suffocated the Scouts’ attack all evening in a 2-1 victory to send Steve Keller’s club into the Palatine sectional next Tuesday. The Vikes will face either Libertyville or the host Pirates.
“It’s rare to score 2 goals like we did, but we took advantage of that and our defense, as a unit, stayed organized, kept its shape and maybe played its best soccer of the season as a unit,” said Fremd coach Steve Keller moments after his players lifted the regional championship trophy in front of their home fans. “We knew coming in that the strength of Lake Forest was in their middle, and that’s where we did an excellent job tonight of staying tight and compact.”
Keller was especially pleased with the contribution of Eric Leonard, who played just in front of Fremd’s back-three defenders and helped defuse the Scouts’ attack.
For the second consecutive match on the turf at Fremd (13-5-2), the NSC champs found themselves in trouble with yet another MSL West club after battling past Conant on Tuesday.
Lake Forest allowed an early goal when Tambellini sent his 30-yard shot from the near side twisting away from keeper Sam Franklin Audley, just inside the post in the 12th minute.
“I saw the keeper moving just before my shot, but I never figured I would go upper 90,” said Tambellini, whose performance on the outside was strong throughout, as his pace, energy and tackling were key in the Vikings victory. So was the effort from his midfield mate Jeremy Kosacz, who helped the Vikings stay strong right up the spine of the field.
Less than 60 seconds after Tambellini scored, Hindle doubled the lead when he curled his 30-yard free kick around the wall of the Scouts (14-5-1) and past Audley, who was still barking out instructions to his back line and found himself out of position for Hindle’s superb effort.
“Going up 2-0 so early was really big for us, and we could have made things a lot easier for ourselves if we could have added another one before the half,” said Hindle, who recently committed to DePaul, “but we played well for most of the night, and our defense was especially strong all throughout.”
Hindle’s attempt in close with a half-volley bicycle again nearly surprised Audley, who needed to go full extension in order to pull the strike out of the air at 22 minutes.
Matt Briars, Nate Hellwarth and Eric Scott along the back earned plenty of praise from their teammates and Keller for helping keep the Scouts’ top scorers — Michael Shipp, James Ankeman, Nikolas Svigos and John Moderwell — far away from Colton Caesius. The Vikings keeper was called upon to make one important stop in the 23rd minute against Ankeman on a 50-50 ball and suffered an injury, giving way to Steve Soltykiewicz in the 59th minute.
Shipp’s inward swinging corner from the near flag created all sorts of trouble inside the 6-yard box, and any number of Scouts in the vicinity could have steered the ball into the back of the net to pull Rob Parry’s club within 1 goal in the 54th minute. But the Vikings didn’t panic and weathered all sorts of pressure for the next 10 minutes as the Scouts looked to equalize.
“It can be a game of inches sometimes,” said Parry. “Either one of those 2 goals could have hit the post, and we could have put in one of our shots which went close. But in the end, it is very difficult to give away two early goals to a team like Fremd and expect to come back and even though I thought we controlled most of the second half. We just didn’t do what we had to tonight.”
“Tonight we received some terrific energy from our bench, all of whom provided the type of work rate we needed on a night like this,” said Keller. “It was a good win for us, and now we go forward from here.”