Boys soccer: Carmel shuts down Grayslake Central

For the second straight match, Carmel Catholic's boys soccer team put forth its entire effort and it finished with a complete-game shutout.

The Corsairs are starting to realize that they can play like last year's team with a younger squad this season.

Carmel Catholic shutout host Grayslake Central 4-0 in a nonconference matchup in Grayslake on Tuesday night.

Sean Farrell scored a pair of goals, Ian McKernan, and Eli Larson had the others for the Corsairs (4-2) while Riley Pierson had a couple of assists and Michael Handel had the other one.

"We took care of business eventually," Carmel coach Ray Krawzak said. "We're pleased and we took care of business. We had a game plan and it took a while for us to execute. If our back line does our job, we're a very sound team. It's going to be very hard to score on us this year. It's awesome to see (keeper) Camden (Krautsack) step up."

Carmel has put together two straight shutouts with a 5-0 victory over ESCC rival Marian Catholic at home Saturday afternoon. Krautsack earned his second straight clean sheet but in this one against the Rams he made 7 stops including a couple of breakaway saves.

"I made a few good saves off a few good breakaways," Krautsack said. "It's tough, because you never when to come out. It's kind of a game whether you go or not. Because, you hesitate before you realize what the striker is going to do either dribble or take a shot right away. You just have to stand your ground or go."

The entire Corsairs' defense deserves some credit too - including Joe Baude, Handel, Pierson and Larson.

On the offensive side, Pierson set up the opening Carmel goal in the 31st minute, when he sent up service near the top of the box. McKernan hit a half volley for his first goal of the season.

Then, Larson scored in the 49th minute on a header off a corner kick from Handel that made the score 2-0.

Farrell added the other two goals in the 61st and 77th minute.

Grayslake Central (1-9) continues working hard without getting the results that it's expecting to see.

"It's the same story, we can keep possession for long periods, but we don't do anything with it," Grayslake Central coach Tom Hamilton said. "We don't communicate well enough, we know that these are the issues that we have, we just haven't fixed them yet. Carmel was a good team. They played hard and definitely outworked us. They deserved to win."