St. Viator pours it on vs. St. Patrick
Second-half goals from Petar Milenkovich and Chris Madro set St. Viator on its way as the Lions cruised past visiting St. Patrick 4-0 in a East Suburban Catholic Conference boys soccer match Wednesday in Arlington Heights.
The match was called at 74 minutes to due dangerous conditions caused by lightning.
The easy victory failed to impress coach Mike Taylor, who did not hesitate to call out his club during intermission and after both sides quickly shook hands and ran for cover.
"I'm disappointed with the effort and heart the boys showed today," said Taylor, whose team improved to 8-2 and 3-0.
"We saw that (St. Patrick) was an easy opponent, and we laid down and didn't play with the St. Viator heart that we normally do."
In the early stages, the homeside appeared to signal otherwise as the midfield duo of Billy Hamilton and Kevin Cavers ran out of the middle of the park freely and connected with Trevor Wheeler and Milenkovich whenever and wherever they wanted.
Yet while this quartet, along with Alan Aboona at the outside, moved the ball quickly from touchline to touchline, the Lions showed little bite in their attack. When they possessed deep in the Shamrocks (2-9-2), they never really recorded a quality attempt on sophomore keeper Mike Graf until Madro entered the match at 17 minutes. He immediately finished from 25 yards with a cracker.
Taylor would bring many of his first-11 from the pitch during the first 40 minutes with the hope of finding more pace and energy.
Except for a good effort from Jim Reidy, who had a go late in the first-half, the Lions would take a 1-0 lead into the break.
"When we're on, we're really on, and when we are off, like (today) we can look very average," offered captain Matt Riggio. "We can't come out and play like we did because of the type of opponent we're playing against."
The Lions started brightly enough after intermission much as it did at the start of the match.
Thirteen minutes later when Milenkovich finished off some nifty work by Wheeler and Jake Morsches.
Madro added his second of the match just moments before the weather intervened.
Wheeler carried and tricked his way past a trio of defenders on the right side before pushing a perfect helper to the spot where Madro finished.
Keepers Patrick Windle and Joey Marinaro would share the shutout for the Lions who will travel to Evanston this Saturday for a noon match in an annual nonconference contest.
"It's still the middle of the season, and there's time for us to get things settled down and sorted out," Taylor said.