Boys soccer: Glenbard East gets up to beat Glenbard West

It's definitely not difficult for Patrick Campuzano to get himself out of bed in the morning on game days, especially when they're at 11 a.m. Saturday.

And when Campuzano and his Glenbard East teammates are taking on a District 87 rival, such as Glenbard West, it's even easier.

There's no doubt Campuzano will sleep well after he scored the game-winning goal late in the second half Saturday to lift the Rams to a hard-fought 2-1 victory.

"Of course playing another Glenbard is going to bring more energy from myself and my team," he said. "I know some of the players on their team from playing with them for club and stuff like that. It's just great energy and competitiveness and that's what I love."

This year the four District 87 teams are battling for more than wins, conference titles and deep postseason runs, but also for a traveling trophy and bragging rights. It's something new this year and adds something more to these upcoming regular season battles.

The Rams (1-1) denied a couple early opportunities from the Hilltoppers before jumping on top 1-0 on Gavin Wooldridge's cross to Josue Sarabia with 31:15 remaining in the first half.

"I saw Gavin running down but I didn't know if I could make it," Sarabia said. "So I started sprinting as hard as I could and hoped that he could find me."

Glenbard West (1-1) erupted for eight goals against Plainfield North in its opener earlier this week, and while the Hilltoppers threatened throughout this game, they struggled to finish.

Oscar Berrun, Kyle Irwin, Danny Mejia, Jesus Meza and Owen Schiff kept Glenbard East's back line and goalkeeper Michael Urias busy all game but didn't break through against them in the opening half.

"We had chances to finish, but we didn't finish them," Meza said. "We created a lot today, but it wasn't our day to finish. So we'll push this game aside and try to come out strong in the next one."

Meza most definitely came out fired up in the second half, scoring on a header off a pass from Schiff just 1:37 into the return to action.

Berrun, Meza, Schiff and Alex Olechowski then followed with solid opportunities to put the Hilltoppers ahead but either misfired or were denied by Urias.

The Rams didn't threaten as often as the Hilltoppers but made the most of their chances, burying the go-ahead goal from Campuzano with 6:14 left in the game.

"We were playing good combination through the middle and the ball got out to the wing," he said. "Thomas Glenzinski played a perfect ball to the back post and I had to finish. Big plays like that bring me a rush in soccer."

The Hilltoppers did not have an answer. They did have a corner kick chance with replacement goalkeeper Danny Cortez in for a shaken up Urias with 2:01 left, but it caromed off a Rams defender. Urias returned to finish the game.

"You never should be satisfied with a tie," Campuzano said. "We want the best for us and the team has been practicing so hard every single day to get to where we want so we're going to go out there and get it."

The Rams were coming off a 4-2 loss to West Chicago in their opener.

"We saw that our defense had to get better and try to shut down things and anticipate things better," Rams coach Josh Adler said. "And we had to manage speed and space of players coming at us and I felt at times we did a better job of that. And another thing was our scrappiness. We grinded through a very tough match and it's good to have those early on like this."