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Boys soccer: Buffalo Grove bounces back to beat Glenbrook North

Buffalo Grove rebounded from its disappointing loss to Mid-Suburban League rival Barrington on Thursday to earn a hard-fought 2-1 boys soccer victory over Glenbrook North Saturday afternoon.

Jakub Szydlowski provided the game-winner at 60 minutes, but it was the overall effort from teammate Brian Perez that made the difference at Robert Naughton Field in Northfield.

The senior stunned the Spartans (1-1-1) three minutes into the contest, scoring with two GBN players all over him, then with a brilliant individual run and carry, he set up his teammate Szydlowski, whose sensational one-timer put the Bison (2-1-0) in front for good.

"We needed this win real bad today. Back-to-back losses would have been tough for us to overcome here at a tournament as great as this one is," said Perez of this 6th annual Northside College Showcase hosted by New Trier.

"We thought we played well enough against Barrington but on that night, they were the better team, and deserved the result. It feels good to win our tournament opener, but there's still a lot of work ahead of us and we all know it."

"Today you saw how good of a player Brian Perez is, and if we can continue to get him to get his teammates involved and part of the attack, then we'll really have something special in him," added Bison coach Darren Llewellyn.

The reigning MSL champs missed a chance to double their advantage on a missed penalty kick in the 8th minute, but it wasn't until after the break that GBN equalized on Joey Martens' 20-yard blast from the blue just outside the box.

" (GBN) was big, strong and physical, and we had our troubles with that, but once we began to possess and slow the game down midway the second period the game turned in our favor," said Llewellyn.

When Perez was allowed to dribble freely along the edge and toward the back post it led to the Szydlowski strike.

Senior Aadam Sempoch, who enjoyed a strong game between the sticks for the Bison, came off his line in the 68th minute with confidence to dash the hopes of a potential 1 v 1 for Konrad Kulesza.

"No. 10 (Perez) is a great player and easily the best player out there today, but we cannot allow someone like that to do what he did for their second goal. It wasn't acceptable," said GBN coach, Paul Vignocchi, who was a star keeper at North in the mid-199's, then later at NIU before leading the Spartans to a Class 3A fourth place finish in 2004.

Next up in pool play for the Bison is state-ranked Lyons Township at home on Tuesday, while GBN hosts Waukegan.

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