Schaumburg reaches regional final

Schaumburg booked its spot in Friday's regional final in Franklin Park in a hard-fought 3-1 victory Tuesday evening against Mid-Suburban League rival Elk Grove.

The No. 12-seeded Saxons (10-5-1) will meet regional host Leyden, which eliminated Glenbard East 3-1 in an earlier game.

"In a match like this, where the field conditions are poor and the track is slow, the team which would win all the 50-50s and play with a great work rate, heart and energy would come out ahead. Tonight that was Schaumburg," said Elk Grove coach Joe Bush, whose club ends its season 7-8-3. "Declan (Geraghty) was a monster out there tonight winning every ball all over the place, and Erhan Caglayan somehow scored a world-class goal with just an inch of space. And between those two guys, and everything else, we just came up short."

Though both Bush and counterpart Hamid Mehreioskouei would have preferred this regional match to be played on the field turf many MSL schools now have, neither coach used the conditions as an excuse for less-than-precise play for the 80 minutes.

"That (was) a pretty ugly second-half of soccer, but we accomplished what we set out to do in the first half, and that was, more or less the outcome as we saw it," said Mehreioskouei.

The Saxons' coach began the match with three up top, and the tactical move seemed to be the inspiration the attack needed as several chances were created around Grens keeper Mike Monegato.

"We knew that Elk Grove plays a deep sweeper, and in our previous match that sweeper would just come up and take everything away from us - so we thought an extra striker could help break them down in the back," offered Mehreioskouei.

The two sides traded goals just three minutes apart, with the Saxons striking first when sophomore Jake Savino followed the flight of a Geraghty ball to the back post before slotting just inside the frame.

Irving Cruz evened things with a blast from the left side off of keeper Jason Wojcik.

Caglayan's goal at 28 minutes was truly spectacular as the senior unloaded in tight space and past Monegato, who had virtually no chance.

Three minutes later, Geraghty made it 3-1 with a neat finish.

The Grens had an opportunity to cut into the lead in the 40th minute, if not for a save by Wojcik on a well-struck blast from Ernesto Rodriguez.

"Getting that 3-1 lead before the break was so big for us, and you could tell how much that deflated the hopes of Elk Grove," said Schaumburg co-captain Blake Nelson.

Leyden 3, Glenbard East 1: As goes David Wisniewski, so goes the Leyden boys soccer club.

Tuesday evening, the Eagles' leading scorer wasn't going much at all. But when the junior did, it was all Leyden.

Wisniewski drew his club even near the hour mark to start a three-minute explosion from which Glenbard East (5-10-5) neverer recovered in a 3-1 victory by No. 3 seed Leyden (13-8-1) in a regional opener Tuesday in Franklin Park.

"You saw what (David) means to this club today, didn't you?", said Leyden coach Mark Valintis, whose team meets Schaumburg at 4 p.m. Friday in a regional final. "We had such a terrible start today, and I can contribute some of that to David, Luis Adame and Arnoldo Reyes all out with injuries in our last three matches.

"Today, when we finally got it going, we were able to get a win on a day when we didn't play our best soccer."

Glenbard East imprisioned the WSC Gold champs in its own area for the first quarter hour of play and took the lead at nine minutes when a left-footed blast in close from Sam Dennis found its way into the back of the net to culminate a wonderful start from the No. 14 Rams.

"Our first 15-20 minutes today was terrific, but it almost seemed that we kind of backed off after going up on (Leyden) while getting away from what we were doing so well, and that was to attack on the outside and into the corners and create some chances along the way while doing so," said Rams coach Josh Adler.

Glenbard East's back line of Phil Wadle, Sean Little, Ben Arellano and Brandon Paleczny did well to keep everything in front of them.

"If we could have gotten another one into the back of the net, maybe the outcome would have been different," said Adler, who cautioned his club during intermission about how emotion can turn around a match quickly, and to work hard after the break to keep the Eagles in check.

Adler was right.

When Wisniewski broke through after beating a pair a marks, the walls came tumbling down on the Rams, who conceded 2 more quick strikes, the first coming with a bit of trickery from Adame to get in close, and the second from Reyes.

"Sometimes we wait for (David) to get our attack going, but today we had to wait a little longer for him to give us a lift," said Reyes, who helped his club break a three-game losing streak in which the Eagles did not score.

Conant 2, Addison Trail 1: Conant had 19 minutes to avoid being on the wrong end of a stunning upset in the Class 3A boys soccer state tournament Tuesday.

The Cougars (13-2-5), the top seed in their own regional, trailed No. 16 Addison Trail by a goal in their semifinal match.

But the Cougars survived and advanced on a free kick by Joe Falcone and Shivam Patel's goal off a Kevin Reddington assist for a 2-1 victory.

Conant will play in Saturday's 6 p.m. regional final against No. 10 St. Charles North, which beat No. 7 York 1-0 in the other semifinal.

Hersey 3, Buffalo Grove 0: Alex Gardasevic, Kyle Pietro and Eddie Rodriguez scored first-half goals for fourth-seeded host Hersey in the semifinal win over Mid-Suburban East rival and No. 13 Buffalo Grove.

The Huskies advanced to Saturday's 3 p.m. regional final against No. 5 Lake Forest, a 2-0 winner over Glenbrook South.

Barrington 2, Cary-Grove 1: Marc Drouin and Andrew Krissinger scored as third-seeded Barrington knocked off second-seeded Cary-Grove in the Lake Zurich semifinals.

Barrington will play in Saturday's 6 p.m. final against the top-seeded hosts, who beat Dundee-Crown 7-1.

Palatine 3, Fremd 1: Top-seeded Palatine, the Mid-Suburban League champion, advanced with a regional semifinal win over cross-town rival Fremd at Mundelein.

The Pirates will play in Saturday's 1 p.m. final against No. 8 Warren, a 4-1 winner over Waukegan.

St. Viator 9, Sullivan 1: The top-seeded Lions rolled to the Class 2A regional semifinal win at Ridgewood. They'll play at 3 p.m. Friday for the title against the eighth-seeded hosts, who beat No. 9 Senn 3-1.