Captains step up for Lisle
In a game that felt like a daylong cricket match, the Lisle boys soccer team's captains were the difference Tuesday afternoon … and evening.
Senior midfielder Josh Kiesling scored on a penalty kick in the 91st minute to propel the Lions to a 1-0, double-overtime nonconference victory over rival Westmont.
Kiesling is one captain. The other, junior Max Pavlyuk went airborne multiple times, especially in the first half, to prevent the pesky Sentinels from scoring, finishing with 6 punishing saves.
The Lions needed all that effort, considering they had to endure a nearly one-hour lightning delay after heavy storms pushed through DuPage County, not to mention the extra periods.
Lisle improved to 2-2. Westmont dropped to 0-2.
"From the standpoint of being on the field and playing, Josh is our best skilled soccer player, and I think he understands the game better than just about anybody on the team," Lisle coach Paul Kohorn said. "As far as Max, he works so hard at his craft and wants to be a really good goalkeeper and he is a good goalkeeper. Quite frankly, without Max, we lose this game tonight."
This is probably true. Pavlyuk got going in the seventh minute, making a great diving save and parrying the ball to the left, resulting in a corner kick that his teammates cleared. Seconds later he did the exact same thing. That's two goals he prevented.
His most impressive save may have come in the 35th minute, when Westmont senior midfielder Miklos Rab got loose on a breakaway, but Pavlyuk deftly stepped up and blocked the ball away to the right. Another goal prevented.
Minutes later, the storms came, with plenty of lightning and buckets or rain that stopped the contest for close to an hour. But Pavlyuk didn't weaken, even to the end, making a diving save off a Rab shot in the middle of the 18-yard box after a corner kick in the 75th minute.
"I mean, every game I come into, I'm basically the one defending the goal so I need to block everything I can possibly," Pavlyuk said. "I love this stuff, man."
But for as well as Pavlyuk played, Lisle wasn't able to punch one through against Westmont goalkeeper Eddie Gracia, who was tough in his own right and ended with 5 saves. The teams traded punches through one overtime, then early in the second, before the Lions finally struck.
Sophomore forward Josh Hammer was tackled in the exact middle of the 18-yard box, with the ball rebounding to fellow sop Daniel Wojtowicz, who promptly deposited the ball into the right corner of the net. But the referees called a foul on Westmont junior defender Norbert Kowalski.
Kiesling coolly stepped up on the penalty kick and buried it in the right side of the net.
"You've just got to let everything go," Kiesling said of the PK. "Just can't think about it. Place it. Don't overthink it. There was no doubt in my mind."