Crystal Lake South upends Cary-Grove
Crystal Lake South grabbed control of the wheel right from the outset in a key showdown at Cary-Grove on Tuesday and after a 3-1 win the Gators find themselves in the driver's seat of the Fox Valley Conference Valley Division boys soccer race. The loss snapped the Trojans' 11-game win streak.
Orlando Tapia scored twice to the lead the Gators and Ryan Russman also added a goal.
South (11-4, 3-0) outshot C-G 10-3 in the first half and scored twice to lead 2-0 at the break.
"We knew this was going to be a difficult challenge playing on this field against a physical team," South coach Brian Allen said. "So it was important for us to establish our brand of soccer early on. I thought the way we were able to control the midfield let us dictate the ebb and flow of the game from the start. We were able to get the ball to our playmakers in some open spaces."
With 15:07 left in the first half Tapia got the Gators on the board when his free kick from just outside the box froze C-G goalkeeper Ethan Csoka and found the back of the upper left hand corner of the net.
"Ethan is our goalie in club ball, so I was a little amazed I was able to surprise him like that, " said Tapia. "I don't think he was expecting that hard of a shot from that far out. But I've been working on that since summer and this the third time this year I have been able to score off that play."
With the Trojans still reeling the Gators added a second goal less than 3 minutes later by Russman to go up 2-0.
C-G (11-2, 0-1) wasn't about to go down easy and swung the momentum in its favor at the start of the second half.
Just 3:45 into the second half Luis Lemus scored on a crossing pass from Michael Arenberg to pull to the Trojans to within 2-1.
The Trojans kept the pressure on, but missed out on some golden opportunities to tie the game. With just under 30 minutes to play the Trojans had a free kick ricochet off the crossbar. Moments later 2 point blank shots right in front of the net were deflected away by South goalie Dalton Kause, who had 7 saves in the game.
The Gators managed to weather the storm and later reversed the field on a breakaway to score an insurance goal. Tapia streaked down the left side on the play and took a pass from Charles Ruff. Then in perfect stride from 15 yards out he scored his second goal of the game and his 8th of the season.
"We've been in this position a few times this year," Allen said. "Where we had a 2-0 lead and the other team has come back on us. So it was huge for us to be able to grow from those experiences and turn things back around in this game."
The Trojans had a 13-3 shot advantage in the second half, but could not capitalize.
"We had our chances," C-G coach Mark Olson said. "But we just had too many breakdowns in that first half that came back to cost us. The free kicks we allowed really hurt us."