Boys soccer: Fuller's early goal lifts Geneva over St. Charles North

Senior forward Matt Fuller provided the offensive jump start and his defensive teammates stayed the course throughout during Geneva's 1-0 soccer victory over host St. Charles North Tuesday night.

Nearly a minute after he narrowly misfired on a low shot, Fuller once again made a rush and delivered what turned out to be the game's only goal just 3 ½ minutes into the match.

"It actually kind of caught me off guard," Fuller said of his similar early scoring chances. "Usually you get them (scoring opportunities) as the game goes on a little bit. Both chances didn't come from a straight ball. The ball took a deflection off the defender. It was bouncing and I just got my toe on it past Bobby (North Stars keeper Curran). We couldn't have asked for a better start."

Geneva (6-3, 2-0) maintained control throughout much of the opening half, peppering Curran with 10 shots - 5 of which were on net.

"We came out and got two chances with Fuller right away," said Vikings coach Jason Bhatta. "I thought we started really well. We were moving the ball."

Meanwhile, North Stars coach Eric Willson lamented over his team's play during the first 40 minutes.

"There have been chances that we've had and we haven't been able to capitalize in that final third but that was a tale of a first half where I thought we were just poor," said Willson.

"When you play in this conference, you just can't afford to do that in any half yet alone to start a game. You start a game like that - I don't want to take anything away from Geneva because they played hard tonight - but when you don't execute and you don't play to what I think our capability is, you walk away with a loss."

The North Stars (5-3-1, 1-1) had several second-half scoring chances, with perhaps the best coming midway through when the ball snuck through to Thomas Weber but the midfielder's shot caromed off the post and was scooped up by Geneva keeper Osten Lockner (9 saves).

Lockner made another save on a 35-yard free kick from Jason Sinnaeve in the final 2 minutes before 6-foot-5 defender Stuart Turnbull jumped to head the ball away off a free kick from North's Xander Jao in the closing seconds.

"Stu has come up huge for us in the back row," said Bhatta. "I think the coming of age for him was that Naperville North game (earlier in the season). All they do is play long ball and he really stepped up in that game to be a leader of our back line."

The Vikings also received defensive contributions from Evan Horvath, Jack Cannon, Joe Carli, Shun Yonehara and Ethan Hipp, among others.

"They had the ball in our half quite a bit but nothing really came of it," said Bhatta. "That was awesome.

"We've been working really hard on our defensive shaping and not leaking goals because last year we leaked a lot of goals. Sometimes luck went our way - they hit that post - but I thought we played really well."