Chicagoland Soccer

Huskies fall 3-1 to visiting Whitney Young
By Bill Hupp

Since its invention, the flip throw-in has befuddled teams at all levels of soccer. Teams just aren’t used to defending a well-placed, high-arcing ball coming into the penalty box from that angle. Without decisive defending and strong communication, it can lead to confusion and worst of all – goals.

Oak Park and River Forest struggled to clear Whitney Young’s onslaught of flip throw-ins on Wednesday night, which eventually led to a 3-1 non-conference loss at home.

For the first 42 minutes of the game, an OPRF win only looked like a matter of time. The Huskies had the lion’s share of the possession, attacked in waves and peppered the Young goal with shots (holding a 14-2 unofficial advantage in shots at one point).

They took a 1-0 lead into halftime thanks to a nifty strike by Noe Espinoza. Okker Verhagen had his cross from the left wing blocked, but it fell right to Espinoza. The senior forward cut the ball in on his left foot, which sent a Young defender flying by, then drilled it past keeper Jesus Velasco to put the Huskies up.

Thirty seconds into the second half, Tim Huettel drove a low, hard cross across the face of goal that just eluded on-rushing Husky attackers.

But OPRF’s aggressiveness in the midfield left them exposed in the back and vulnerable to a counterattack. Eventually, Young took advantage. Senior forward Nicolas Cantanvespi played a great through ball to junior Brandon Doby, who cut inside on his right foot and curled his shot past OPRF goalie Andrew Galo to tie the game less than two minutes into the half.

Young took the lead shortly thereafter on an OPRF own goal. Cantanvespi’s long throw was headed high into the air and Galo leaped to catch it. As Galo landed, however, he bumped into his own player and could only watch as the ball bounced behind them into the net.

“[The throw] is a weapon and we use it,” Young Coach Ian McCarthy said. “We don’t always like to do it because it slows down the pace of the game, but we put a lot of pressure on them tonight and it worked out.”

“We have to defend that play better – it’s like a corner,” OPRF assistant coach Paul Daly said. “We seemed to become deflated and dispirited by going 2-1 down.”

Indeed, the goal seemed to spark Young, who controlled possession pretty well after that. The Huskies had a couple chances, but mostly hammered long shots over the goal.

The clincher came as a result of another long flip throw-in by Cantanvespi. That effort was cleared out for a corner. Galo parried away one shot from that resulting corner, but captain Jaime Alonso calmly slotted his shot past Galo to give the Dolphins a sound 3-1 edge.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve competed with [OPRF],” McCarthy said. “We’re really trying to emphasis possession [of the ball] and I think we did that at times tonight. The goals we scored were a credit to us being aggressive.”

Huskies like Asher Einhorn, Mavin Gill, Verhagen and Sam Dull did a good job of forcing turnovers high up the field throughout, but it wasn’t enough against a Young squad that played with more belief and confidence in the second half once they took the lead.

“Our high ball pressure up the field was really good at times,” Daly said. “We created plenty of opportunities … we just couldn’t put them away.”