Sabbione perseveres in Glenbrook North soccer win at Glenbrook South

It was just Glenbrook North forward Vicente Sabbione and the soccer ball against Glenbrook South goalkeeper Colin Morse in the 70th minute of a scoreless tie.

Morse sprinted out to meet the streaking Sabbione, who kept coming and put the ball in the back of the net.

Goal waved off. Offsides.

"That was very shocking," Sabbione said.

But not disappointing.

"Not at all," the sophomore said. "I knew I was going to get another chance."

Three minutes later Sabbione was in a battle for a 50-50 ball with Glenbrook South's Zarko Pavlovic. More like a 33-33-33 ball as Morse had again charged from the goal mouth to try to grab the airborne ball up high.

Sabbione, though, gained control, and on a sharp angle from the right side of the turf at Glenbrook South's John Davis Stadium the Spartans' top scorer booted in a hard bounder from about 25 yards away for a 1-0 Spartans lead with 6:09 remaining.

"I didn't stay mad," Sabbione said. "I knew I was just working hard and I was trying to stay positive and work on the next one, and I got it."

Senior Gabe Nyman added a late goal for a 2-0 Glenbrook North victory Tuesday that moved the Spartans to 5-1-2 and 1-0 in the Central Suburban League South. Glenbrook South dropped to 3-3, 0-1. Glenbrook North keeper Jett Greene made 2 saves in the shutout win.

"It was a tough side, they're a good team," said Nayman, who converted a deep pass into an empty-net goal with 21 seconds left after Morse joined a Titans set play for a last-ditch scoring attempt.

"We expected them to be a good team," Nayman said. "Every year it's a challenge. We beat them in a regional final last year so we came back, we knew they were going to play tough and we adapted, and we won."

Glenbrook North coach Reggie Lara had no problem with the aggressiveness of the 6-foot-4 Morse, who leapt high to deny David Sohn's scoring bid late in the first half.

In fact, the coach said he wish he'd made those types of plays when he was a goaltender at Illinois Wesleyan. The Titans' three wins have all come on shutouts by the strapping Morse.

"That was a rough situation where he's got to go as hard as he can and maybe he comes out with the ball," Lara said. "I trust Colin, I think it was just an unlucky situation."

What he would have liked to have seen different was in a rivalry contest that became progressively more physical, with several yellow cards and 16 fouls, the Titans not taking it personally.

"A lot of our starters are juniors," Lara said. "This might have been their first intense varsity rivalry kind of game so obviously emotions were running high. That's why we had a lot of yellow cards.

"Credit to North, they got under our guys' skin and they got us out of our game. We need to be better in terms of just emotionally checking ourselves."

It'll come, Glenbrook North senior defender Drew Maytum believes.

"We've made some strides towards where we want to be, but it's not quite there yet," he said. "We're definitely getting better every day in practice and everyone's getting to know each other a little bit more as the season goes on. I think it's just going to get better from here."