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Boys soccer: St. Charles North blanks Bartlett

St. Charles North had a memory going into Tuesday's boys soccer season opener, host Bartlett now prefers to have one for later in the year.

The visiting North Stars had revenge in mind since their 2015 season ended in a sectional loss at Millennium Field to Bartlett. North made a pair of first-half goals stand up for a 2-0 victory.

Ultimately the North Stars (1-0) resembled the squad that won the Upstate Eight River Division title and have seven seniors and nine juniors intent on erasing the thought of last year's exit.

However, the Hawks (0-1), looked less like defending Valley Division champions and more like a team that has 16 newcomers, including a pair of freshmen goalkeepers who provided Bartlett's highlights in defeat.

North's Dylan Mientus had a strong opportunity sail just outside the left post early on while North Star keeper Percarlo Riscossa comfortably stopped a Brandon Palid attempt. However the North Stars got on the board after 9:37 when David Gorniak nailed a 31-yard cannon shot into the left of the net past first-half Hawk goalie Jeremy Taylor.

"Seeing a defender closing on me I was able to push the ball to my right and just let it rip," Gorniak said. "It's great to have your teammates celebrating a goal and we remembered losing to them (in sectionals) on the field, so we had revenge in mind."

Eight minutes later North had a golden opportunity to double its lead thanks to a Bartlett push that produced a penalty kick at 16:16. Not only did Taylor solidly block the attempt diving to his left, but then he scrambled to his feet and prevented a putback try by Jonathan Acevedo.

Another Bartlett misplay led to a corner kick that was followed by a scramble in front of the net with Gorniak blasting a try off a defender and Sean O'Leary pounced.

"When (Gorniak's try) went right off their defender all I had to do was toe-poke it home," O'Leary said. "I was probably a little lucky, but I'll take it for my first goal of the year."

The North Stars had a pair of possible goals in the second half wiped off via a foul and an offside ruling, but the visitors still finished with 16 shots on goal within 26 overall attempts compared to Bartlett's seven overall tries, three of which required Ricossa's skills for his shutout.

"Defensively we played soundly and the first half we created good scoring opportunities off some good combination play," North coach Eric Willson said.

Bartlett boss Vince DiNuzzo had to take a long-term view.

"They're a good team, but we made them look a little better because we haven't found the best Bartlett. Ten days of training and 16 newcomers out of 20 means we have work," DiNuzzo admitted. "The big positive was the play of our two goalies. Zach (Rebac) was solid and had a couple outstanding saves in the second half. More impressive to me than Jeremy stopping the PK was the presence of mind to get up and be ready for the putback."

Both Taylor and Rebac tallied 7 saves with the second-half stops by Rebec including an ESPN Top Plays-worthy extension horizontally.

"There are moments when you just have to throw your body to make the stop," Rebac said. "Hopefully today's game is one that will help us if we play them later this year."

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