Barrington takes advantage

Barrington (4-2-0) stretched its unbeaten streak to 4 games and booked its place in the championship match Saturday evening after defeating Rockford Boylan 3-0 Thursday night.

Two goals in the second-half, one a brilliant finish from Taylor Williams and a late penalty kick by Ata Ozbay helped maintain the Broncos' perfect record at their new stadium for coach Scott Steib. His team awaits its opponent after earlier pool play matches were canceled because of rain and lightning which plagued the 20th annual Barrington Classic all throughout the early evening.

"Was it a 3-0 match, not really," said Steib. "Boylan has a nice club, and we had the good fortune of getting an own goal to start the scoring, then finishing with Ata converting a PK for us.

"But good teams find a way to win (sometime) and we were able to do that tonight."

Boylan (2-3-0) was quickly into its stride during the early exchanges as its midfield outworked the home side, while its backline, playing a flat-four for first-year coach Chris Mera, stayed organized throughout to keep Ozbay and others from breaking through.

As the first-half progressed, the Titans began to dominate the proceedings, yet hardly ever put a quality strike on Broncos' keeper Tom Unak, except from freshman Victor Zamora. He had a go at 16 minutes and later Unak stayed suspended in air to steal away a goal from Ryan Howe just moments before intermission.

Ozbay was denied at the half-hour mark by Titans keeper Adam Czerniewski when it looked as if the senior would make it 2-0 after teammate Greg Navitsky's cross to the spot was redirected in by a Boylan defender.

"It was a long night, made even worse by the hard rain we had to play in, so it was (good) for us to get that own goal in the first half to put a little pressure on Boylan, which was playing very well up until that point," said Ozbay.

Boylan looked on course to find the equalizer after the break with senior Rocco Taglia creating and taking on the Broncos backline with verve and pace. But the visitors wasted its opportunities in close and found themselves trailing 2-0 when Williams connected at 67 minutes.

Williams would slot easily at the tail-end of a center channel run a superb ball sent through from the right side, set up when Ozbay tricked his way past his mark.

Ozbay would get the goal his performance deserved from the penalty spot at 78 minutes after Williams was hauled down in the area following a helper from Ryan Mangone to help set him free.

"After struggling at the start of the season, we've come back to play better soccer, and more as a team," said Steib, who at 6 p.m. Saturday will play either Lake Zurich or St. Charles North.

Fremd 3, Waubonsie 0: Don't try and tell Fremd sophomore Lorenzo Savino that a constant rain through two games of soccer left Naperville Central's Memorial Stadium field in bad shape by the time the Vikings took on Waubonsie Valley.

In fact when Savino and his teammates took on the Warriors in the second game of Thursday's Best in the West Tournament action, the speedy forward wasted little time proving that the conditions suited him just fine.

Savino scored on a nifty left-footed blast less than four minutes into the contest for a quick 1-0 lead for Fremd. It was the first of three goals by Savino has he recorded his first varsity hat trick and powered the Vikings to a 3-0 defeat of the 2-2 Warriors.

"We were pumped up on the bus and coach told us to come out and warm up the way we wanted to play," said Savino, who has 5 goals on the year for Fremd (1-3-1). "We came out hard and it felt really good to get that first one right away."

Senior Robert Horwitz picked up the assist on the quick strike after setting up Savino on the right wing. The blast from the top of the box sailed just over the reach of Waubonsie goalkeeper Karim Aziz.

The Warriors picked up their play from there and led in shots on goal 5-4 at the half but still trailed 1-0 when Savino struck again early in the second half, this time off a feed from Matthew Mayer with 37:44 left in the second half.

Savino then finished off his hat trick and Waubonsie Valley with a rebound score with 8:51 left on the clock.

"The second goal made us feel pretty good," Fremd coach and former Waubonsie standout Steve Keller said. "But with such a young team you always worry they might come right back. The third one felt extremely good."

- Stan Goff