Boys soccer: St. Charles East's offense comes alive vs. St. Charles North
Coming from Bartlett, it took St. Charles East coach Vince DiNuzzo a little while to understand the Saints' rivalry with St. Charles North.
He gets it now.
"There's really nothing like East-North for the kids," DiNuzzo said. "As an outsider coming in I didn't really get it. Now I get it. I see different things you don't see throughout the season at this game. Once the schedule is released it's the game they think about it."
The Saints put on an offensive clinic Thursday, scoring twice in the first half and three more goals in the second for a 5-3 victory on their home field.
Renato Avendano scored the first and last goals for St. Charles East, now 7-3 overall and 2-1 in the DuKane Conference.
"With such big games like this it's all effort," Avendano said. "We all worked hard."
After a scoreless first 20 minutes, Avendano took a perfect pass from Sabastian Carranza through the North Stars defense that hit Avendano in stride on the right side as he was cutting toward the goal. He found the back of the net for a 1-0 lead.
Carranza also assisted on the second goal with three minutes left in the first half to Brendan Adams.
"That was an old-fashioned butt-whipping in the first half," North Stars coach Eric Willson said. "As soon as they got the goal our body language went down. It's pretty disappointing to see."
The Saints quickly made it 3-0 five minutes into the second half when Truitt Battin scored on a penalty kick.
Matt Beaulieu got the North Stars back into the game with consecutive goals, both times chipping the ball over the keeper. His second goal came with 24 minutes to go and made it 3-2.
"We worked as hard as we could in the second half but can't give a team 3 goals," said Beaulieu, who now has 11 goals.
"We're really inconsistent with the energy we give out. Sometimes we come out with a lot of energy and play great, sometimes we play like we did in the first half today. That's just something we have to work on."
Nick Nelson's penalty kick restored a 2-goal lead for the Saints before Thomas Weber's goal again brought the North Stars within one with 4:24 remaining.
Avendano sealed the win for the Saints when he took a rebound off Gray Biddle's shot and scored in the 77th minute.
"I thought he (Biddle) was going to put it in but you learn to follow shots," Avendano said. "I just followed hm in and the ball came out to me."
St. Charles North (9-3-2, 1-2-1) was coming off a 2-1 win over Lake Park on Tuesday but couldn't keep that momentum going.
The North Stars lost Nolan Sinnaeve who had to be carted off the field midway through the second half with what Willson said is a left ankle injury.
"We're a yo-yo right now," Willson said. "We're a roller coaster. Tuesday night was fantastic for us. We looked like a different team than Tuesday night. For us coaches it's trying to find consistency."