Wisniewski, Leyden top Glenbard East
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.