Hornets not happy about officiating in loss to Lemont

By Matt Le Cren

Add Hinsdale South's James VanDenburgh to the growing list of high school soccer coaches who have been upset about controversial officiating this fall.

VanDenburgh and two of his players received yellow cards for dissent Saturday against host Lemont on the final day of the Waubonsie Valley Invite.

Lemont converted two penalty kicks and that proved to be the difference as the Indians won 3-1 despite being dominated by the Hornets for much of the first half.

"That's a rough thing to do at the end of the game when you're talking about the referee instead of the play, instead of offense or defense and what's clicking and what's not," VanDenburgh said.

"It's just unfortunate. It's something that's hard to recover from. It wasn't our best effort, either. With those two things combined, it's tough to be competitive."

For the most part, the Hornets (6-10-4) were competitive in the tournament, coming away with two ties and a loss.

But that wasn't satisfactory to VanDenburgh, whose club played fluid attacking soccer in the early going and grabbed a 1-0 lead on Nick Henry's seventh goal of the season, just five minutes in.

T.J. Kubiesa made the play possible, dribbling to the endline on the left side of the Lemont penalty area before cutting it back and finding Henry on the doorstep for the easy finish.

But Lemont (10-7-3) tied the game against the run of play when Brandon Sabanov scored on a penalty kick with 21:18 left in the first half.

It was the first shot of the game for the Indians and it seemed to take some of the wind out of the Hornets' sails.

"It really did because we were on just such a high, we were just going so well," Henry said. "It was fun to play. We weren't really even having to run that much. It was just nice moves and passes.

"They got that penalty and after 30 minutes of [us] dominating, it was 1-1."

The Hornets continued to have the better of the action for the rest of the half, forcing five corner kicks and nearly retaking the lead twice.

Lemont goalie Andrew Putna, who finished with nine saves, made a leaping stop on Henry's 32-yard free kick with 12:10 to play in the half.

Then about six minutes later, a strong header from Matt Schuster was tipped over the crossbar by Putna.

Putna continued his fine play in the second half, making a diving save on another header by Schuster and another stop on a Kubiesa nod.

Lemont also got lucky when a Schuster header hit off the underside of the crossbar at the 36:40 mark of the second half before being cleared out.

"[Putna] stopped a lot of headers," Henry said. "He kept them in the game."

Lemont again scored against the tide with 32:36 remaining on a goal by Andrew Chialdikas.

Kyle Koehler started the play when his long shot was deflected by teammate Tommy Gasienica to Chialdikas on the right side of the box and Chialdikas beat keeper Paras Patel (4 saves) to the far post with a 10-yard drive.

"We came out so well and scored a really good goal and we had a lot of other chances," Henry said.

"In the second half if we came out the same way we came out the first half, we probably would have taken it, but we came out the way we ended the first half, which wasn't as good as we started.

"Even when we play well it seems like we don't have that killer instinct to put a team away. We've only done it once or twice this year."

Any momentum the Hornets had left was snuffed when Lemont was awarded another penalty kick with 14:51 to go after a Lemont player appeared to have taken a dive. Gasienica converted it for a 3-1 lead.

"The second PK was a dive," VanDenburgh said. "The first one our guy went up for the challenge, won the ball and he said that he didn't go for the ball. That's just the nature of the officiating. Referees make errors and so do we.

"That's the unfortunate part. We felt that we were the better team and the score wasn't indicative of that. It's something to think about.

"We're not playing at the level that we expected to be, so we're going to go back and try to figure some things out, do some final tweaking before the season comes to an end."

Henry, who praised the play of Kubiesa, defender Dan Pocica and midfielder Joey Gangi, said that the choppy play in the second half, which included many stoppages because of arguments, hindered the Hornets.

"There were a lot of yellows and the ref told us that if we said anything at all, even if it was just asking questions, it was going to be yellows," Henry said.

"In the heat of the moment, sometime you say little things, and it just kept stopping our flow. We're a team that likes to move the ball and have a lot of possession. When it's [choppy] like that, it's hard to establish that."