Glenbard South reigns over Glenbard West
The weather on Tuesday night thumbed its nose at senior night for the Glenbard South boys soccer team. The pregame ceremony and the game took place in heavy rain.
But the Raiders got the best gift a senior night has to offer, a 2-0 victory over cross-town rival Glenbard West.
Glenbard South (13-6) went into the game after losing to Fenton on Monday. Raiders coach T.J. King believed his team needed to regroup.
"I challenged the team after the Fenton game and our senior leadership responded. I was really impressed tonight. We started all seniors and we stepped up and played well," King said.
Glenbard South won't have to wait long for another shot at the Bison. After the regular-season finale Thursday at Addison Trail, the Raiders will have a few days to prepare for Oct. 22's Class 2A regional semifinal against Fenton at St. Francis.
Glenbard South is seeded third in that regional, Fenton No. 2.
"There were a couple of mistakes we made against Fenton that can be corrected. It will be a good match," King said.
Against the Hilltoppers (6-11-1), the Raiders scored both of their goals in the first half. With just less than five minutes gone in the game, Mike Dimoula took control of a throw-in from Chris Enright and put a shot in from 10 yards out.
With 29:44 left until halftime, Enright controlled the ball off a bounce just enough to pass it to Ben MinCungLian, who made it 2-0.
Although the Raiders led most of the first half, Glenbard West's offense was in full gear and trying to take advantage of its scoring opportunities. The Hilltoppers led in shots on goal during the first half 8-4.
Sophomore Connor Strait had a couple of good scoring opportunities and was involved in another during the first 40 minutes. Just about 10 minutes after Glenbard South's second goal, Strait's cross to Spencer Rojc resulted in a shot that went wide of the far goalpost by just an inch. Just 25 seconds had elapsed when Strait sprinted to just a a yard or two from winning goalkeeper Keaton Tenhouse, forcing Tenhouse to make a quick diving save.
"Today, we had a good 25 minutes. We needed to play more like we did in the second part of the first half," said Glenbard West coach Maciej Kusmierz. "Most of our opportunities come from working as a team. We tried to apply pressure and we were able to create a few scoring opportunities, but we could not finish them."
The game was Glenbard West's regular-season finale. The Hilltoppers open the Class 3A postseason on Friday by playing host to Proviso West in a Wheaton North regional quarterfinal at 4:30 p.m. Glenbard West is the 13th seed in the Bartlett sectional. Proviso West is 19th.
"We're trying to improve every game we play," Kusmierz said.