Boys soccer: Conant upsets Addison Trail

A difficult final minute in the first half, and an even tougher one in the opening of the second half, proved to be too much to overcome. They combined to end Addison Trail's wonderful boys soccer season.

Blazingly hot Conant cooled the Blazers 3-1 during Friday's Class 3A Glenbard East sectional championship game.

The Cougars, who beat their third straight higher seed, not only ended Addison Trail's season, but they ended its 17-game winning streak and dreams of winning the first sectional title at the school since 1992.

"We didn't have it tonight," Blazers coach Ryan Dini said. "We were off. Our first touch was bad, but I'm proud of my guys. They fought and you're not going to play great every night."

Conant (15-7) didn't appear to have much going on offensively as halftime approached until Nico Scimeca found an opening in the middle of the penalty box, dribbled straight ahead and scored with 58 seconds remaining.

As if being that close to heading into the break scoreless wasn't depressing enough for the Blazers, they came out and surrendered another goal just 66 seconds into action in the second half when Nuh Ozbag scored.

"That was deflating, but give Conant credit. They played all out," Dini said. "They finished, we didn't. Their defense was very good tonight so that second goal was big. We were like, 'All right, we have 40 minutes here,' and then all of a sudden we're down two and that changes the whole style we're playing."

Addison Trail (22-2) allowed another goal to Scimeca in the 50th minute to fall behind 3-0.

"We didn't want to pack it in in the second half because the best way to defend is to attack," Scimeca said. "We came out strong and wanted to get that quick goal and settle the nerves, and the third one, it was smooth sailing from there."

It wasn't that smooth though as Enrique Luna's breakaway goal in the 72nd minute got the Blazers on the scoreboard. Then they continued to execute a full-on desperation attack and peppered Conant goalkeeper Piotr Pyz with a handful of shots, but were either off the mark or had them punched out by Pyz.

"After that second goal we had to wake up, but we woke up too late," Luna said. "I think after (my) goal we had the momentum and realized we could score, but it came too late in the game."

It was the final game for Addison Trail's 12 seniors.

"I told them they raised the bar as far as our program is concerned," Dini said. "We've been building it for awhile. The future is promising and we've had winning seasons at the freshmen and sophomore levels the last three years. We expect to be a good team every year. The seniors we're going to miss."