Viator, Aboona show no mercy

St. Viator has shown little mercy on its first three East Suburban Catholic Conference boys soccer opponents this season, including visiting Marian Catholic on Thursday afternoon in Arlington Heights.

The Lions (10-2-0, 3-0-0) cruised to a convincing 8-1 victory. They struck for a lightning-quick 4 goals in six minutes, including the first of 3 for senior Alan Aboona, who opened the scoring when he converted a penalty kick at 25 minutes.

"It was tough breaking through (on) Marian because they really packed it in from the start, and never got away from playing that way until we built a big lead," said Aboona, who with his hat-trick now has 20 goals on the year.

"We didn't play with a lot of patience, and we tried to force everything into the middle, instead of getting wide to stretch (them) out and create some space, which played right into the way (they) were playing," said Lions head coach Mike Taylor, who will also be taking over the girls program in the spring.

"It's a tough ballgame for us to play, especially after going up against tough clubs like Geneva and Totino Grace (Minn.) during the past week.

"But there's a lot to be learned from a match like this, and when we finally began to play the way we have been, then we played some nice soccer."

The Lions began brightly, with a positive driving run from Aboona, which forced Marian's (6-6-3, 1-3-0) John Schramm into an acrobatic save in close, but the senior keeper could do nothing to stop the offensive onslaught later on when the home side stormed out in front for good.

After Trevor Wheeler beat a pair of defenders into the right side of the box, the all-area midfielder was hauled down to give Aboona his penalty kickopportunity in the 25th minute.

Sixty seconds later, from almost the identical spot in which he was brought down, Wheeler instead turned on a dime before firing a low drive off Schramm's glove and into the back of the net.

Wheeler finished a Billy Hamilton long throw, just before the Lions conceded what Taylor would call a terrible goal to Anthony Smith, but easily got itself back on top by three when Kevin Cavers tricked his way in close before going past Schramm.

Aboona would be brought off for good, along with Wheeler when the Lions' leading scorer made it 7-1 at 58 minutes.

Mark Lada and Joe Schmidt would help finish off the scoring for the Lions, who will host Evanston at noon Saturday.