Boys soccer: Geneva blanks Batavia, still perfect in DuKane

Shun Yonehara may have been aware of the Geneva-Batavia rivalry, but he hadn't experienced it personally until Thursday night.

The Vikings senior, who played club soccer exclusively his first three years of high school, converted a penalty kick early in the first half and then added an assist late as the Vikings rolled to a 4-0 victory over the Bulldogs in DuKane Conference action at Burgess Field.

"The guys love having him on the team," Geneva coach Jason Bhatta said. "They knew him from outside of soccer and they played against him when he played at Eclipse. He's a quiet guy but we have a lot of big personalities on the team."

After senior forward Matthew Fuller got taken down in the box with 30:05 remaining in the first half, Yonehara showed poise as he buried the ensuing PK which provided the Vikings with all the scoring they would need.

"I felt kind of pressured at first," Yonehara said. "But once it went in I felt a lot more confident in the game."

Geneva (9-3-2, 3-0) controlled from the onset and really wasn't threatened by the Bulldogs.

"It's been all about our team effort," Geneva senior defender Stuart Turnbull said. "We had another great team effort and we've been working a lot on our defensive shape. We did a great job of playing out of the back and that kept our shape and then we did a good job of possessing and didn't give them a real chance to get into the game."

Junior Dominick Peri extended Geneva's lead to 2-0 when he scored with 23:45 left before halftime.

The Vikings added an insurance goal with 6:46 to play before the midgame break when sophomore Christian Diaz continued his wonderful first year for the Vikings scoring via Yonehara's corner kick.

"We've giving up a lot of goals," Batavia senior Isaac Hager said. "Once we start getting our defense down I think the offense with start coming on and we'll start creating some goals."

Batavia (1-9, 0-3) created its best scoring chances late in the first half as junior Mark Lillig lined a long shot right at Geneva goalkeeper Osten Lockner while senior Tony Avila's header attempt in the final minute also was snagged by Lockner.

While the Bulldogs didn't piece together a comeback in the second half, they were able to keep the Vikings off the scoreboard until Geneva junior Dominik Barwiolek scored with 10:18 remaining.

It was Barwiolek's first goal.

"It's been unlucky for me so it felt really good to score," he said. "I made a diagonal run and Josh played a great ball through and luckily I scored."