Boys soccer: St. Charles North ties with Rockford Boylan
With an opportunity to advance into Saturday's 28th Barrington Classic final, St. Charles North's boys soccer team was unable to take advantage of its opportunity to do so after its 1-1 draw Thursday night with Rockford Boylan (4-1-2) ended the hopes of both of going through.
The North Stars (3-1-1) will now wait to learn who its next opponent is when pool play is concluded Friday when Conant travels to Lake Zurich to decide who will meet tourney host Barrington in the 6 p.m. final.
"It's kind of a disappointing result for us today," began North Stars head coach Eric Willson, whose team along with Boylan, Conant and Lake Zurich all entered this night with three points after each recorded a win and a loss during the week.
"We weren't able to control the two ends of the field - that was our biggest issue."
"We defend well in our box, despite spending a lot of time training in that area, and it cost us when they scored off a dead ball and on the other end, we just were not sharp enough in the final third to finish a couple of terrific chances we created so I don't believe any of us is very happy with this result."
Neither club would distinguish themselves during the first 20 minutes of action, as most of the play stayed between the 18-yard lines, with very little purpose or creativity happening from both attacks.
The North Stars began to show some life with Ryan Olson, Johnathan Acevedo, David Gorniak and Bernard Elegbede the reason for a now rampant attack.
Gorniak would go wide, just before the best chance of the half fell to Elegbede, who brought the ball down from his chest and in the same motion, unloaded a wonderful half volley which forced Titans keeper C.J. Couper into action.
Dylan Mientus would end this flurry just before intermission with a left-footed blast that Couper was required to save.
"North enjoyed the run of play during the last 15-20 minutes of the first half, as we struggled to get of our own end, but I felt like we turned things around in the second half with a better all-around effort to get ourselves back into this match," offered Titans' longtime head coach Chris Mera.
Austin Lombardi's free kick cross from the far touchline caused all sorts of trouble for the North Stars, and their inability to clear the area gave junior Colin Beatty the chance to give the Titans the lead when he finished in a crowd at 57 minutes.
North didn't fold after conceding the Beatty goal, and shortly thereafter, Groniak brought the North Stars back even when he converted his spot-kick in the 64th minute.
A well-played counter from Jake Persenico, Acevedo and Gorniak nearly saw Acevedo finish from in close when this sequence brought the aforementioned Couper far off his line, but Acevedo steered his shot wide of the open net.
The North Stars found their stride once again in the final quarter hour, but their best chance to grab the lead saw Mientus' redirected header of a wonderful serve by Acevedo saved by Couper just three minutes from time.
"We had a bit of a lull in our game to begin the second half, some of that to the credit of Boylan, and we didn't wear them down like we do to all of our opponents, but we'll regroup, go out and try to finish this tournament strong, and move on from there," said Willson.