Lions rally from 2-0 deficit to beat St. Charles East
By Matt Le Cren
Lyons Township's match against St. Charles East had all the makings of a classic trap game, sandwiched as it was between last Saturday's emotional 2-2 tie with Neuqua Valley and Friday's much-anticipated contest with defending Class 2A state champion Saint Viator.
Sure enough, the Lions did fall into the trap, but they used a terrific second half to rally from 2-0 down to beat the Saints 4-3 Wednesday in LaGrange.
"I told the kids they looked disinterested at the beginning of their warmup," Lyons coach Paul Labbato said. "We've been telling them all week it's a trap, that you've got to be up for every game.
"This is [the Saints'] state championship. If they win this game they can feel like they won the state championship, and we're going to get everybody's best shot every single game."
St. Charles East (1-3) staggered the reigning Class 3A state champs with their best shot in the first half, scoring twice in 94 seconds late in the period.
Zach Arvia set up Jonny Bren on the first goal, a half-volley from just outside the goalie box that looped over LT goalie Kevin Beglen's head and inside the left post.
Arvia got the assist on the second tally as well. After Kevin Kurtz started a counterattack up the left wing, he crossed to Arvia, who quickly found Luke Cooper streaking behind the defense on the right wing.
Beglen had no chance on Cooper's one-timer from 16 yards out that made it 2-0 with 7:00 left in the half.
"It was kind of the same deal as the Neuqua game, a few mental lapses, I guess you could call it, in the back early and it really put us in a hole," LT forward Elliot Borge noted.
"But I don't think we ever lost confidence that we could come back, as long as we got in our rhythm. We were fortunate to get one before halftime."
Borge played a huge role in the impressive comeback, picking up two assists, one of which came on the eventual game-winner.
The junior gave the Lions (3-0-1) some much-needed momentum when he made a great run up the middle, sprinting around two defenders into the penalty area before firing a hard shot.
East goalie Nick Novotny dove and got a hand on the ball but left a rebound on the doorstep for Horacio Sanchez, who finished it to cut the gap to 2-1 with 1:17 remaining before intermission.
"From a personal standpoint, I just try to get the attack going, add some creativity," Borge said. "I was probably dribbling a little bit too much this game, but I just try to break their back line down and maybe slip someone in or find someone on the back post.
"And Horacio was following it up where he should have been on my shot at the end of the first half."
Borge's free kick from deep in the right corner was volleyed home by Alex Economou at the 16:23 mark of the second half. That gave the hosts a 3-2 lead.
"He's a special player," Labbato said of Borge. "He sees the game much differently than most players at this level see it.
"He's directing people on the field, just doing a great job of getting people in the right spaces, [having] little conversations on the field after a play happens to help another player learn. He's around all the goals."
One goal Borge didn't have a hand in was the game-tying tally, which senior defender Peter Kralovec-Kirchherr scored on a throw-in from the left wing with 19:56 left.
A team cannot score directly off a throw-in – the ball must touch at least one other player, as it does on an indirect kick.
But Kralovec-Kirchherr's heave deflected off the head of a Saints defender and past goalie Eric Meesenburg, who had replaced Novotny 14 minutes earlier.
"The goal on those throws is just to try and get it into the mix of things and hope that one of our players can get a head on it," Kralovec-Kirchherr said. "And it just turned out that they had an unlucky ball backwards and past the keeper."
"Sometimes you need that lucky one and that kind of pulls you through," said Labbato, whose team scored a similar goal last year against Rolling Meadows in the Pepsi Showdown.
The Lions were lucky on that play, but persistence had something to do with it as well.
"We probably put 15 of those long throws in the box today so something was bound to happen," Borge said.
A lot of things kept happening, not all of which were welcomed by Labbato.
Kovas Zygas headed home a cross from Sanchez with 9:07 left to extend the LT lead to 4-2 and it looked like the Lions would cruise to victory.
But Ethan Jendrzejczyk scored on a breakaway to cut the lead to 4-3 at the 5:37 mark.
Several of the Lions had stopped running after Kralovec-Kirchherr was stripped of the ball at midfield in what the Saints thought was a clean play but the hosts figured was a foul.
The linesman put his flag up to signal a foul but the referee did not whistle an infraction.
That triggered a 10-minute stoppage in play in which a St. Charles player picked the ball out of the back of the net and an argument ensued with several of the Lions.
After much arguing from both sides with the officials, several players received yellow cards and one Lion player was given a red card.
That forced the Lions to play a man down for the rest of the match, but they were able to hold the ball in the attack zone. The two sides combined for seven cards, all in the second half.
"We have to keep better control of our emotions because three of those cards were [for arguing], not on-the-field tackles," Labbato said.
"Give credit to St. Charles East. They did a great job of pressing the issue. They constantly try to play soccer and that's why we have them on our schedule."
In the end, the Lions got more than a victory out of the match.
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"I think this game is a huge learning experience for us," Kralovec-Kirchherr said. "We have to realize that no game is going to be a little more laid back, because every team is going to be gunning for us.
"[Because this was] between the Neuqua and the Viator games I think we kind of saw this as a little bit of a valley game, and we realize that that can't happen anymore."
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