Lake Forest eliminates Hersey
Fifth seed Lake Forest defeated Hersey 2-0 in the regional final hosted by the Huskies and played at Palatine High School on Saturday afternoon after the Huskies' home pitch at Roland Goins Stadium was deemed unplayable.
The Scouts (16-3-1) will take on top seed Palatine (21-1-1) in the first sectional semifinal match at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday at Stevenson High School.
"We didn't really know how good of a team Lake Forest was, but they showed us today they can really play," said Huskies keeper Greg Janicki, who finished a wonderful senior year for coach Darren Llewellyn with 2 brilliant saves to help keep his club in the match until the Scouts broke through midway through the second half. "We just didn't play as well as I knew that we could, and we didn't finish a couple of early chances when they were there for us."
"We gave away a couple of chances early on," said Lake Forest coach Rob Parry, "but we settled in, and although we had a tough time solving the way Hersey defends as a team, we finally were able to get past a very difficult opponent to score on."
The Huskies (14-4-5) ran and battled for the entire first 40 minutes of play as the Scouts knocked the ball from touchline-to-touchline, showing terrific patience in their build-up only to fall off when near or inside the Huskies box.
"You've got to be impressed with the with how composed and organized (Hersey) is in its own end, and especially around (their) box," Parry said.
The Huskies had a chance at the half-hour mark when they almost found something out of nothing as a loose ball fell to Alex Garadesevic in close, but his left-footed blast was blocked by an alert Sam Moore. Garadesevic was appearing in just his second match of the season.
"There was a ball literally sitting for us to put in at the start, and we had a couple of other chances that we didn't put away, and when Lake Forest had its chances, they didn't miss," said Llewellyn.
However, Janicki did make the Scouts miss.
The all-state candidate made consecutive stops that left the Scouts faithful wondering if it was not going to be their day. The first stop came opposite Cameron Offer at point-blank range; Janicki saved again seconds later against Michael Shipp.
But a persistent Scouts club broke the goal-less match moments later when Offer was put clear by Shipp on a nifty heal flick.
Some 11 minutes later the Scouts put a little more distance between themselves and their opponents when Offer slotted home in close on a rebound off a Janicki save.
"That is an excellent team we played and lost to today," said Llewellyn. "We've had a great run this season, and players like Janicki, Nick Boyle and the other seniors have been a part of plenty of history making teams the past three seasons here, and that's something to be proud of."