Boys soccer: Bartlett battles back to tie South Elgin

For IHSA and Upstate Eight Conference purposes, Bartlett and South Elgin tied 2-2 Monday night.

But there was more at stake than just a half game in the standings - bordering town bragging rights and the tentatively named Thunder Hawk trophy were on the line.

So with spectators filing out of the stadium, the teams lined up for penalty kicks at the south end zone.

For the record, Bartlett made 2 PKs while shutting out South Elgin to take home the trophy.

In the game that counted, Bartlett erased a 2-goal deficit in the final 14 minutes, tying it on Edgar Leon's goal in the 76th minute.

The deadlock under South Elgin's newly installed lights left both teams lamenting missed opportunities to some extent.

Bartlett, of course, would have preferred a win, but after the late comeback, the Hawks weren't complaining.

"It's especially salient when you talk about playing away in a Monday conference game where we're usually flat, at South Elgin, which is typically not an easy field to play at," said Bartlett coach Vince Revak. "So, yeah, I like to talk about the missed opportunity of a possible win, but, bottom line, the way things were going before 20 minutes left in the game, we definitely came out with a positive result in the end."

After an extended feeling-out period, Edwin Ayala and Danny Quintana scored 4 minutes apart to seemingly put South Elgin in control.

Hernan Garcia got the Hawks (3-1-2) on the board with a line drive from about 10 yards out following a free kick in the South Elgin end by Amine Medmoun.

Then, with time running out, Leon took a feed from Sean Cox and fired in a shot from 20 yards away to tie it up.

"Coach told us, 'We've got to keep pressuring them, we got them,'" said Leon. "So that's exactly what we did. At one point they kept telling me, the left side is always empty. We've got to switch it up."

After not being able to get much going in the first half, the Storm opened things up after intermission, and it started in the back.

"They were finally able to see the difference it makes when we're able to play smartly out of the back," said Storm coach Jerzey Skowron. "It tends to open them up. They were pressing us the whole game. To unlock them a little bit forced them to get dragged out of position."