South Elgin Storm nabs BC title

A second-half offensive explosion carried the South Elgin boys soccer team to victory in the championship game of the Burlington Central Rocket Invite Saturday.

The Storm (3-2 overall) scored 4 times after intermission to down Kaneland, 4-1, in the championship game.

Ernesto Caballero had 2 goals and an assist, and Bartosz Mazurek added a goal and an assist for South Elgin. Caballero's goal at the midpoint of the second half was the game-winner.

Kaneland came out of the box strong and took an early lead on a goal by Santiago Tovar less than 8 minutes into the game. The momentum swung South Elgin's way about halfway through the first half. Most of the half was played in Kaneland's end, although the Storm couldn't find the back of the net.

Kaneland goalkeeper Chris Ott made some great saves, including coming out of nowhere to dive on a shot by Mike Alfini just before halftime.

"It was a promising first half with some of the opportunities we had," said South Elgin coach Mark Neville. "We were hoping for more of the same in the second half with the wind, and we got it."

For all of the Storm's chances, it took a fortunate bounce to get on the scoreboard. Caballero redirected a bouncing ball over Ott's head and barely across the goal line, tying the game with 33:15 left to play.

Later, Caballero dribbled toward the center, saw an opening, and drilled a shot over a leaping Ott, giving the Storm the lead.

The Storm added a pair of insurance goals in the closing minutes. Reyes fed a nice cross to Mazurek right in front of the net and he banged it home. Eighty-four seconds later, Mazurek fed a ball ahead to Dan Bohlin, who knocked it home.

Ryan Hicks made 3 saves in goal for the Storm.

Rockets take 3rd: Burlington Central (3-2) took third place in its own tournament, shutting out Genoa-Kingston 3-0. Ryan Warner got the Rockets on the board with a long assist off the foot of goalkeeper Kyle DeRaedt. Charlie Schmidlin and Charlie Fletcher each added second half goals with passes from Chris Gousios and Logan Krup respectively. In goal, DeRaedt blocked 18 shots to preserve the shutout.

Hampshire (1-4) downed Yorkville 4-3 in the fifth-place game. Hampshire got a pair of goals from freshman newcomer John Cabra, who also assisted on a goal by Geza Kogler. Robert Murphy added a penalty kick and also assisted Cabral's opening knock. Making his goalkeeper debut, Marcus Quick tallied 6 saves in the win.