Boys soccer: St. Viator grabs East Suburban Catholic title
Apparently, St. Viator's boys soccer team was saving its best for last.
On the final day of the regular season, and with everything at stake in the East Suburban Catholic Conference, the Lions thumped Benet 3-1 on Friday afternoon in Lisle to emerge as outright league champion for the first time since 2010.
St. Viator (16-5-1, 8-1-0) denied Benet the draw it needed in order to win a second outright title in the last three years.
"This feels real good, especially after Benet beat us on the final day of the season last year to force a share the conference title with us," said St. Viator coach Mike Taylor.
"It's a tough loss for us to take, but today we showed our youth against a well coached, very solid St. Viator team which deserved to come out of here with the win," said Benet coach Sean Wesley, whose club entered Friday's contest with just 4 goals allowed in league play. "We had some trouble along the back today, and our midfield never really connected much with our guys up front. On top of that, we gifted them two of their goals, and that isn't going to work against a team like St. Viator."
Plenty of rain during the early part of the week left the Redwings' turf in rough shape for the match, and those conditions made possession difficult, especially around the north end of the pitch and inside the 18.
It was clear from the opening whistle that both teams were targeting their leading scorers, Zach Gyurizca and Aiden Williams of St. Viator and Yale-bound Kyle Kenagy of Benet, who was dangerous with nearly every touch on a blustery fall day.
"We knew we had to slow Kenagy as much as we could, and even though he put one in on us, and had a couple of other quality chances, I thought our guys in the back did really well defending him and Benet most of the afternoon," said Lions midfielder Miles McDonnell.
Kenagy was at the center of the best chance of the first period for the Redwings (14-3-2, 7-1-1), redirecting on the outside to Artur Pach, who drove his right-footed smash off the far corner of the bar at 27 minutes.
Three minutes later, Gyurizca forced keeper Konrad Bayer to kick-save a low blast from the left side.
Anthony Pineda scored the first of his 2 goals for St. Viator in the 45th minute.
The junior took advantage of a communication breakdown between Bayer and his back line to finish into an empty net before Kenagy's brilliant effort on his 20th goal of the year, with assists from Connor Mote and Omar Kashow, tied it up.
Five minutes after Kenagy equalized, Pineda gave the Lions the lead for good in the 56th minute. McDonnell provide an assist on the second Pineda goal. The work of Gyurizca, who turned his mark inside out, helped provide the chance.
"Coach (Taylor) has been telling me all season long if I continued to work hard, the goals would come, and today they did," Pineda said.
Benet conceded another goal, this one from Gyurizca, to dash the hopes of the Redwings' fans five minutes from time.
"We had a chance to get back even when Kyle put a great ball to the back post, but nobody was there to put it away, and who knows what happens after that?" said Wesley. "But again, St. Viator deserved the win, and now we regroup a little bit, and get ready for the state tournament next week."