Maine West hangs on, tops Niles North

The Maine West boys soccer team held on for a 2-1 victory over host and No. 12 seed Niles North to win the Class 3A regional championship Saturday night at Chuck Pos Stadium in Skokie.

The two teams stalemated during the first half, but the second-seeded Warriors (17-4-2) gained a personnel advantage when Vikings forward Brian Monterroso received his second yellow card of the game.

Five minutes later, Maine West junior forward Ryan Ybarra snared a rebound from Angel Herrera's shot on goal and scored to put the Warriors up 1-0 with 26 minutes remaining in the half.

"Angel just had a nice shot that hit off the post," Ybarra said. "I was just waiting for the rebound. I got there and just laced it to the right side."

Despite the lead and the additional man, the Warriors seemed to lose control of the match as the second half wore on. Fortunately for Maine West, Herrera gave the team a 2-0 cushion with a goal off a corner kick from senior midfielder Anes Kadiric.

"We didn't do enough as far as getting our width and getting crosses off," Maine West coach Mike Divincenzo said of his team's play in the second half. "Once we scored, holy cow that was ugly. The game got ugly. They pushed guys forward. Were moving guys back fast, and the last 14 minutes was kind of scary."

"We were panicking," Ybarra added. "I guess we were panicking a lot. But we got it done."

Herrera's goal became critical when Niles North's Freddy Sund scored with 1:17 left in the game to put the Vikings down one.

The Warriors held strong during a wild final minute for their third regional title (2004, 2007) to advance to Tuesday's 7 p.m. Evanston sectional semifinal against rival Maine South.