Carmel springs upset on St. Viator

As they say, you can look it up.

Carmel’s boys soccer team played in Arlington Heights this year against a strong St. Viator team. And when that game ended, no doubt the Corsairs players wanted to never see the Lions ever again. The final score of that game was 8-0, in St. Viator’s favor.

On Tuesday night, the third-seeded Lions came to Mundelein to play 14th-seeded Carmel in a regional semi-final contest at Carmel.

And now St. Viator’s season is over. Carmel stunned the Lions 3-1.

Carmel senior, Keenan Walsh, scored the third and final goal of the night, giving the Corsairs a comfortable lead with 21 minutes to play.

“We’ve made some changes since we’ve played them,’’ Walsh said. “Now, we have an eight-game winning streak. I think this is our first playoff win in four years.”

Carmel coach Ray Krawzak certainly watched the debacle the first time they played the Lions. He just wanted his surging club to get off to a good start on Tuesday.

“We clearly gave up in the first game,’’ Krawzak said. “That’s a very good team. We just wanted to get that first goal.”

And Carmel (11-7-3) did just that. Evan Potter found the net with 28 minutes to play before halftime.

Just maybe the visiting Lions felt a little pressure after Potter tallied for the Corsairs. After all, this was a St. Viator team that finished third in the state a year ago and won a share of the conference crown this fall.

“The first game in the playoffs is the hardest game to play,’’ said St. Viator coach Mike Taylor. “There are always a couple of upsets. They just wanted it more than we did. Hats off to them. They came at us.”

Clearly, the Corsairs had better fortune at putting the ball in the net.

Viator (16-5-1) had several chances at scoring but the Corsairs’ defense shut them down.

One of the Carmel players making a move from offense to defense is senior Ryan McKernan.

“We definitely tried to stop their forwards this time,’’ McKernan said. “Our defense stepped up more in this game.”

Tied at halftime at 1-1, Carmel seemingly struck again 10 minutes into the second half. However, the apparent goal was waved off. The Carmel offense didn’t sulk and was rewarded two minutes later when Adam Cloe scored the go-ahead goal.

Seven minutes later, Walsh checked in with the clinching goal.

“Adam Cloe was telling me to hold the ball,’’ Walsh said. “So I took two touches and ripped it in at the far post.”

Then it was time to play keepaway, and Carmel did a good job at that.

“Viator played a good game,’’ Krawzak said. “We just played a better one. We had a lot of our harder matches earlier in the season.”

And when it was time to pose for the team picture in the goal, the Corsairs were joined by some other folks. So when the picture comes out, there will be a handful of Carmel fans smiling in the team picture after this rather historic victory.

Carmel will return to its home field for the regional championship Friday, against the winner of Wednesday’s Fremd-Round Lake game.