Round Lake, Warren advance at Grant
Second-seeded Round Lake’s boys soccer team battled through a wind-driven rain and pulled out a 3-2 victory over No. 3 Rockton Hononegah in the Class 3A Grant regional semifinal in Fox Lake on Tuesday night.
Maurico Salgado scored a pair of goals and Lorenzo Cortez had the other for the Panthers (17-2-3). Jordi Rubio assisted on two of the goals.
“It was an ugly win,” Round Lake coach Hugo Tellez said. “The weather didn’t help out, but (Hononegah) was a good team.
“Ultimately, my guys wanted it just a little bit more. All these guys don’t want to end their season now.”
Round Lake will next take on top-seeded Warren (18-3-3) for the regional championship at 7 p.m. Friday at Grant.
Warren won the other semifinal 6-0 over No. 5 Zion-Benton.
Hononegah (14-6-1) opened with the first goal in the 19th minute off a short ball from a corner kick. Kyler Olson scored from near the end line after taking a touch pass from Jacob Harp.
Round Lake evened the score at 1-1 in the 29th minute. Lorenzo Cortez sent a corner kick in front of the goal and an Indians defender had the ball go off his head into the goal.
Mauricio Salgado (27 goals) took over in the second half with a pair of goals for the Panthers.
Salgado slid down on the ground and knocked a ball past Hononegah keeper Alex Dunker from a Rubio low cross in the 62nd minute.
Salgado struck again six minutes later off a Rubio assist which put the Panthers up 3-1.
“I went out there and just wanted to finish them,” Salgado said. “One of them, I had to slide for it and the other I got a through ball and beat the goalie with the shot.
“We worked our runs and it opened up the defense.”
Hononegah received a goal from Cody Green in the 71st minute.
“(Round Lake) played a good game,” Hononegah coach Vee Jevremovic said. “We said at the half it will come down to whichever offense will figure it out. (Round Lake) was the one to do it and we had to play catch up the rest of the time. Hats off to them.”
Warren, for the second time in a couple of weeks defeated Zion-Benton by the identical score in the other regional semifinal at Grant. The teams recently met in their final North Suburban Lake match.
“At this point, a win is a win whether you win by 1 or by 6,” Warren coach Jason Ahonen said. “We’re just worried about taking care of one game at a time and each opponent.
“Weather wasn’t ideal. We just played well enough to win and move on from there.”
The Blue Devils’ Tony Severini (12 goals) notched a hat trick, which was his first of the season. Patrick Schulz, Hunter Wilkerson and Ryan Friend had the other goals.
Daniel Szczepanek contributed a couple of assists. Wilkerson and Walsh each had an assist.
“It was a cold, windy night and the goalie dropped it,” said Schulz, who collected his fourth goal of the season on a loose ball in the opening half. But he is normally the Blue Devils’ sweeper and went forward on the set piece.
“You’ve got to go after it. I always know that Ryan Foster hits the ball to the far post. So I went after it and followed it up. I still like to defend a lot more than scoring.”