Huskies fall 1-0 to Libertyville in Pepsi Showdown play

By Gary Larsen

Coaches will tell you that state rankings mean next to nothing in the grand scheme of a soccer season, but if Libertyville is truly a top-five team in Illinois, then Oak Park and River Forest made a statement on where it may belong in the conversation.

The Huskies and Wildcats slugged it out on Saturday in arguably the best match up of the day in third-round action of this year’s Pepsi Showdown.

Libertyville (9-0) won 1-0 on a second-half goal, but OPRF (5-1-2) didn’t back down an inch in an evenly-played contest.

“I think we’re a good team and that we could have beat them on any other day,” the Huskies’ Elias El Metennani said. “If they’re No. 4 then we should be in the top ten, too.”

Huskies’ coach Paul Wright was simply happy to see how his boys measured up against another quality opponent on the schedule.

“It’s obviously not the result we wanted, because we felt like we could play with these guys,” Wright said. “We had chances back and forth. (Sam) Euler makes a great save and we just had kids not reacting to that, and letting a kid come through and pound it in.

That hurts but we had chances, and they’ve got a good, solid back four back there. But we had opportunities. It stinks to have the loss but if (Libertyville) is one of the best teams out here, we’re on the cusp.”

Libertyville scored the game’s lone goal in the 49th minute. After a fine initial save by Huskies’ keeper Sam Euler, the Wildcats’ Matt McNeir crashed net and buried a deflection at the post.

The North Carolina-bound Euler is arguably the top high school goalkeeper in Illinois, and one of the best in the country, but taking it for granted that he’ll snare every shot on every save is a mistake the Huskies learned the hard way on Saturday.

“We thought (Euler) had the ball but you can’t think that until you see it his hands,” the Huskies’ Stephen Golz said. “We didn’t mark up. We’ve got to follow our men.”

The Huskies had to show up early to the fields at Lyons Township in LaGrange, in order to put Thursday’s game behind them. OPRF and Glenbrook South finished in a tie through regulation play on Thursday but failed to play overtime to decide a winner.

Both teams showed up to do just that and after 20 minutes of scoreless overtime soccer, OPRF earned the win in a shootout.

Against the Wildcats, the Huskies worked hard through the midfield and battled to get a shot past the game’s other top-shelf keeper, Libertyville’s Andrew Bitta.

“We don’t have a clear finisher on our team,” Wright said. “We’ve got some great kids that can hold the ball up, and some kids that can head, so we’re trying to work the ball in the outside channels so we can get some crosses in.”

“If something gets cleared out we have a couple kids that hang out on top and can put (shots on net).”

El Metennani also sees promise for an attack working to earn shots during the run of play, and would like to see improvement in one specific area.

“Switching the point of attack,” he said. “We’ll go up one side, forcing it, and it’s better if we can take it to the other side and expose a defense. But for us it’s going to be more about set plays and stuff. We have to finish on those because we get so many of them. We have to take advantage of them.”

Wright was happy with the intensity his side showed in trying to do just that.

“The effort was there. We do a lot of subbing, we’ve got a lot of kids who give us high-energy for 15 or 20 minutes,” Wright said. “Roman Zwarycz really stepped up in the midfield for us today, and he usually plays on the outside, and Elias El Metennani came back from the flu and gave us some quality minutes. He gave us everything he can.

(Thomas) Lamm is doing everything he can for us up top, and so is our stopper, Zack Weigel. He doesn’t have a lot of soccer skill but he’ll win any fifty-fifty ball and put a head on it. He keeps that ball in the attacking third for us.”

The Huskies host West Suburban Silver rival York on Tuesday before returning to Pepsi Showdown action on Thursday and Saturday.

“Everybody on this team has their position, everybody has their part. We just have to run through the ball and put it in,” Golz said. “I think we’re becoming a little more aggressive. At the beginning we were laying back a little bit too much, and now people are going forward, going up for headers, and getting after it.”