Geneva ends Bartlett's season in regional

The Geneva boys soccer team entered Wednesday night's Class AA Bartlett regional semifinal versus the Bartlett Hawks on a 12-game win streak. Eighty minutes later, it was lucky number 13 as the Vikings earned a bid to Saturday's regional final with a 3-0 win over the Hawks.

Geneva (16-5-2) advances to the regional final where it will face Glenbard West at 1 p.m. Saturday at Millennium Field.

Geneva was truly the epitome of clichés representing two in particular with its first-half efforts.

It's quantity, not quality. Or is it the other way around?

For the Vikings it was both.

In the first half alone, Geneva out-shot Bartlett 15-2. Seven of those Viking knocks were on goal, and they converted three of those seven into goals.

Score early and score often.

Senior forward Maxwell Cary got Geneva on the board in the 13th minute of play after driving a ball down the right side and firing one past Bartlett goalkeeper Vince DiNuzzo giving the Vikings a 1-0 lead.

Just two minutes later, Cary would connect a second time. Midfielder Adam Cornwell found Cary in front of the net and delivered a perfect pass which Cary pushed past DiNuzzo (15 saves) via the header.

"Scoring two early goals was great because it was just nice to get the weight off our shoulders," Cary said. "As a forward, you always dream of scoring the first goal of the game to help set the tempo."

And set the tempo they did.

Geneva continued to push for the remainder of the first half allowing DiNuzzo to record eight of his fifteen saves before the break.

However, the Vikings would get one more knock past him with 6 minutes left to play in the first when forward Brian Holbrook found Cornwell open and ready to finish.

Cornwell pounded the dish off his left foot and past DiNuzzo to make it 3-0.

"We came out great in that first half," said Geneva coach Ryan Estabrook. "We wanted to emphasize purpose and playing hard from the beginning which our guys did."

Having had just two first-half chances, Bartlett (10-12-1) created more opportunities in the first 10 minutes of the second half than it had the entire first.

In the 51st minute, Doug Digiovanni blasted a shot off from about 25 yards out which cleared the hands of Geneva keeper Greg Duff (3 saves), but also cleared the crossbar by a few inches.

Seconds later, Digiovanni would try again from 20 yards out, but the shot was wide left.

With 8 minutes left to play, Bartlett had additional scoring efforts from Gustavo Gonzales and Lenny Szatkowski.

"Geneva was playing a lot more possession in the second half than attack," said Bartlett coach Stephen Buchs. "We just didn't click tonight.

"Lenny always does a nice job, and we had some guys step up but Geneva is a great team. Greg Wermes also played hard."

Bartlett's season came to an end, but not for lack of effort.

"The guys got frustrated tonight, but they did not quit," said Buchs. "This season, we saw flashes of a great team, and we really played some excellent games."