Boys soccer: St. Charles North snaps St. Charles East's streak
Jared Sinnaeve won't have the opportunity to compete in a state series this season so he's made his own personal version.
"My Dad said: 'You don't have a state series so I want to see...you haven't beat Geneva your whole high school career; you haven't beat East so that's what I'm taking as my state," Sinnaeve said after the North Stars' 4-2 victory over St. Charles East on Tuesday.
The Saints won the previous three regular season matchup against the cross-river rivals dating back to the 2016-17 season. The North Stars also defeated Geneva 4-1 on March 16.
For Sinnaeve, it's mission accomplished on that front.
"Especially having 18 games, we have to stay composed every single game [and] run the top of the table," Sinnaeve said of the shortened season. "We knew we had to come out today and prove that we deserve that spot. It's hard to stay up there."
North Stars senior Branden Collins put his team on the board just 48 seconds into the game, but Saints forward Sebastian Carranza took advantage of some initial saves by North Stars defenders in traffic to tie it with just under 15 minutes into the half.
A few minutes later, Sinnaeve connected on a gorgeous crossing pass following a corner kick set piece. The ball went to Sinnaeve, who was 30 yards out on the near sideline to put the ball square on goal, which then allowed Luke Persenico to knife in with a header for the 2-1 North Stars advantage.
"That's just a corner kick play we have. I go out and I'm out of the play, as you might think, but come back into the play get the ball," Sinnaeve said. "It's just a play we've written up and it's been really successful in the past. That cross was amazing, seeing my buddy Luke sit back post and just right on his noggin."
That peer-to-peer chemistry has been developing on one soccer field or another for the past three or four years.
"We're really close...we have a really good bond. Just to see that chemistry work out is even better than obviously scoring that goal," Sinnaeve said.
"You watch them in training sessions and they do some things that are pretty eye-opening. I thought we were witness to some of the stuff that I see at training on a regular basis, so it's fun to watch those guys play," North Stars coach Eric Willson said.
Persenico simply calls that connection "brotherhood."
"We all love each other off the field," he said. "It's not just on the field. That brotherhood just helps out on the field and we get good combinations going."
After taking the one-goal lead into the half, Sam Strader passed a through-ball up to Sinnaeve on the attack 30 seconds into the second half for the 3-1 lead.
Fifty seconds later, Persenico artfully scored his second goal of the evening with his left foot with his momentum off-kilter to make it 4-1 North Stars (6-1, 5-0) with 38:22 left in the second half.
The Saints (5-2-1, 2-2-1) kept up the attack as Jacob Maslowski nearly connected on a header, but Vincent Miteff made a skillful save on the wet playing surface. Carranza (eight goals, five assists on the season) did connect on his second goal of the game with 26:37 left, but Miteff (seven saves) and the North Stars defense finished the job.
"I felt like we put our head down after they scored that first goal in the second half. Some obvious things that we need to fix in the back but we're still working through a bunch of stuff, we'll be OK," St. Charles East coach Vince DiNuzzo said.
"It's dealing with the ball in the air," DiNuzzo continued. "I mean, when a team is playing that direct; they're lumping the ball toward your centerbacks, you got to be able to head the ball and our kids didn't want to head the ball today. It was creating second-chance opportunities for them to get in behind and Luke took advantage of them."
"I thought our goalkeeper [Miteff] tonight was just phenomenal," Willson said. "They're a really potent offense and really difficult to deal with. I was saying to coach [Brian] Harks: 'I think we'll probably look at the film and say maybe we could've defended things a little better,' but you know what? They're really good offensively and I think Vince came to save the day tonight for us on more than one occasion."