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No. 11 Fremd ousts Round Lake

Add Fremd to the list of teams that have pulled off upsets in the opening round of the state playoffs.

The 11th-seeded Vikings ousted No. 6 Round Lake 4-1 in the Class 3A Carmel Catholic regional semifinals Wednesday night. Buffalo Grove, Carmel and Palatine have also captured upset wins this week.

“I’m not surprised,” Fremd coach Steve Keller said of his team’s win. “It wasn’t pretty, but we did what we had to do. We have some things that we need to correct by Friday.”

Fremd (8-7-6) will take on host Carmel, the No. 14 seed, at 7 p.m. Friday for the regional championship. The Corsairs stunned No. 3 St. Viator 3-1 on Tuesday night.

Fremd jumped on Round Lake with a pair of goals from Nathan Dolan in the first half.

“I think we came out with some nerves and some energy,” Keller said. “Maybe it was anxiety because it’s the playoffs. Hopefully it’s out of our system.”

The old saying that “a 2-goal lead is never safe” nearly came into play, however. Round Lake began controlling the ball and had the Vikings on their heels.

“(Round Lake) came back a bit and then we had to pick things up again,” Keller said. “We can’t do that. We have to come out and be the aggressor. It puts fear into our opponents. We just lack the consistency. We’ve been in every game except for one.”

Dolan scored the first Vikings goal in the 14th minute, using his head to flick in a ball from Austin Bratkiv. Dolan then headed in another goal — his 10th of the season — off a free kick from Zach Schoffstall in the 28th minute.

“It’s the playoffs and every goal helps,” Dolan said. “We work on set pieces, but we work on every aspect of the game.”

Round Lake (16-3-3) cut its deficit to 2-1 in the 58th minute when Oscar Rodriguez hit a shot into the back of the net. But Fremd added two goals in the final 18 minutes. Schoffstall beat the Panthers defense after collecting a long punt from Vikings keeper Dylan Fisher in the 62nd minute. Jacob Duetschmann finished the scoring in the 75th minute.

“(Fremd) was playing a lot of long balls, but we wanted to play on the ground,” Round Lake midfielder Eddie Ramirez said. “Things just didn’t work for us. They were stopping our attack.”

“There were two different styles of soccer,” Panthers coach Hugo Tellez said. “We fell into theirs and that’s not the way we play. We’ve played a team with that style. It’s just not our game. Our style is touch and go, and they were playing long ball and flicks. We’ve played that before and defended it.”

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