North Stars score four times in second half to defeat Storm

By Seth Hancock

Both St. Charles North and South Elgin came into Tuesday’s game with solid offensive performances in their season openers on Monday.

The North Stars defeated Rockford Guilford 3-1 and the Storm beat Wheaton North 3-2 in nonconference road games.

However, only the North Stars saw the same type of offensive outburst as they defeated the host Storm 4-1 at Millennium Field in Streamwood.

After a scoreless first half, the North Stars (2-0) quickly stole momentum as Mike Winhoffer scored after grabbing a rebound in front of the South Elgin net off a Jared Casey shot just over a minute into the second half.

"That first goal seemed to help get things started," said St. Charles North coach Eric Willson. "We played the night before at 6:30 and came out and played a 4:30 game in the heat today which can be tough for these kids, but we showed what we are capable of here in the second half."

North kept on the attack against South Elgin (1-1) but didn't find the net again until 18:41 was left on the clock as Noah Anthony put in probably the prettiest goal of the game.

The Storm had been called for a high kick inside the goalkeeper box in the top right corner setting up an indirect kick.

Winhoffer touched the ball allowing Anthony to take the shot, and Anthony's shot went just past the diving hands of South Elgin goalkeeper Andrew Perry and ricocheted off the left post and into the net.

Matt Rasmussen gave the North Stars a 3-0 lead with an unassisted goal with 11:19 to play and Zack Matuszak made it 4-0 with a nice header off an Alex Karl pass with six minutes remaining.

"We really had a rough first half, but we kind of just got things worked out and came out strong in the second half," Anthony said. "It's only our second game, but I think we're playing pretty well. We just came out with some intensity in that second half."

South Elgin didn't have many positive on the day but Mike Kozielek provided one of them as he broke up the shutout with 1:30 left to play after racing past several defenders to hit the lower left corner of the net unassisted.

The possession game seemed to be the killer for the Storm. South Elgin controlled the pace through the first 10 minutes of play and had shot attempts from Ryan Piszczek and Danny Frey, but the Storm rarely possessed the ball the rest of the game.

"The bottom line is that if you're not going to possess the ball you're going to be chasing the ball and using too much energy," said South Elgin coach John Uveges. "We think defense first, and we just didn't play well in the back."

Jarod Schuler minded the South Elgin net in the first half and collected three saves and Perry stopped five shots in the second half with several nice diving saves. Meanwhile, Garrett Creasor made five saves for the North Stars.

"Perry works hard, and he's done a nice job in goal," Uveges said. "But we hung him out to dry. We didn't play well as a whole."

Both squads are well acquainted with each other as Upstate Eight Conference teams, but this was the first time that the two teams faced each other with the game not affecting the conference standings as they are in separate divisions of the newly-aligned UEC.