Timing right for another title for South Elgin

The South Elgin boys soccer team might be playing its best at the right time.

With two weeks left before the postseason begins, the Storm won twice Saturday and captured its second tournament championship of the season.

South Elgin scored three times in the first half en route to a 4-2 victory over Huntley in the title game of the Hampshire Tournament after beating Rockford Jefferson in the semifinals Saturday morning.

"We want to be ready for state (tournament)," Storm coach John Uvegas said. "It's all steps. The first half we played better than we played all season."

The Red Raiders (8-9-1), who beat Hampshire 2-1 in the semifinals, took the lead with 27:15 left in the first half after a bad bounce allowed goalkeeper Kevin Montelongo's clearance to get past the Storm defense and onto the feet of Javi Diaz. Diaz beat Storm goalkeeper Jarod Schieler for a 1-0 lead.

But less than a minute later the Storm struck back. Phil Saccameno found himself on a second breakaway in a 3-minute span. This time the sophomore got the ball past Montelongo to tie the game at 1-1 with 26:25 remaining in the opening half.

"To get that one back real quick helped us a lot," Saccameno said. "It brought our morale up and got us going."

Quinn Uvegas gave the Storm (8-5-2), which won the Burlington Central Invitational earlier this season, a 2-1 lead off a feed from Tyler Piszczek with 12:44 left in the first half. The lead grew to 3-1 with 4:04 left before halftime when Bryan Irwin's shot was deflected right to Erwin Hernandez, who scored for a two-goal halftime advantage.

"We didn't have legs to start with," said Huntley coach Kris Grabner, who said his team was playing its eighth game in 10 days. "We haven't had legs for our last three games. It was hard to get them going. We are a much quicker team than that. We play much faster than that."

Huntley cut the deficit to one 10 ½ minutes into the second half when Christian Ramos found the back of the net off a feed from Diaz. But that was the last serious threat for the Red Raiders.

The Storm's Danny Fry made it a 2-goal game again with 18:22 left as his shot trickled through several legs to find the net.

South Elgin 2, Rockford Jefferson 0: The Storm advanced to the championship game with a shutout win in the semifinals. Quinn Uvegas and Mike Kozielek scored for South Elgin and Jarrod Schieler and Andrew Perry combined for 5 saves in goal.

Huntley 2, Hampshire 1: Javi Diaz and Scott Dorviller scored goals to lift Huntley past Hampshire in the other semifinal. Ishmael Morales scored for Hampshire. Kevin Montelongo had 9 saves in goal for the Red Raiders.