Waukegan edges Round Lake for North Shore triumph

A quick start worked in favor of Round Lake's boys soccer team in the championship game of the North Shore Tournament on Saturday.

The latter part of the game was much less favorable for the Panthers.

They lost standout forward Freddie Ramirez to an injury in the second half and were forced to play the last 18 minutes one player short. It was too much to overcome, as Round Lake fell 3-2 to Waukegan after giving up 3 second-half goals at Lake Forest.

"When you lose one of your main forwards, it's hard," Round Lake coach Hugo Tellez said. "Then you play more defensively when you're a man down. It's like your whole game is thrown out the window. We came out and had a great first half. We poured it on and could've got a few more goals."

Ramirez, certainly one of the best players on his team and probably in the county too, took an elbow to his ribs and had to leave the game for the Panthers (2-1).

"He tried to come back in, but he couldn't breathe," Tellez said. "He wanted to go back in, but we couldn't let him do it."

Waukegan (3-1) found its way back into the game with three timely goals, each the product of sound passing.

Jonathan Rojas took a through ball from Miguel Zavala in the 45th minute to make it 2-1.

Round Lake lost a player to two yellow cards in the 62nd minute.

The Bulldogs took advantage, as Josh Illana hit a ball off a Panthers defender that went over the keeper Adis Sator and just under the crossbar to tie it at 2-2 in the 74th minute.

Three minutes later, Zavala took a through ball from Rojas and was left with a breakaway in the box; he converted the go-ahead goal.

"Waukegan was a very good team," Tellez said. "Once they got a goal in, then they got a couple more. It was a good test. I thought we got tired. We just have to take things a game at a time. We just have to look forward to our next game and go from there."

The Panthers scored in the second minute when Ramirez found the back of the net following an assist from Raul Albor.

Round Lake added a second goal in the 14th minute as Brian Gomez scored with an assist from Alejandro Sotel.

• Carmel Catholic won its first game of the season, getting Lakes 3-2 in the tournament's seventh-place match. The Corsairs (1-3) got goals from Justin Ehren, Reed Wilson and Braco Lasso. The Eagles (0-3) had its goals come from Ryan Kelekian and Dave Milostan.

Host Lake Forest shut out Deerfield 1-0 for the consolation championship.