Corsairs come out flat but edge Roadrunners in ESCC play

 

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By Dan Santaromita

From a coach’s standpoint, sometimes a win can be more frustrating than a loss.

Carmel coach John Halloran knows the feeling.

The Corsairs were coming off a hard-fought 1-0 loss to Benet Academy on Monday but were flat in a 3-2 win over East Suburban Catholic Conference foe Nazareth Academy on Wednesday in Mundelein.

“The effort wasn’t there, which was disappointing,” Halloran said. “Monday we played a really good team and they were better, but we played hard for 80 minutes and we lost and that’s fine. I can live with that, but a second-rate effort is not acceptable.”

Carmel (5-3-2, 2-1) dominated much of the match but failed to convert early scoring opportunities and conceded the first goal against the run of play.

The Roadrunners had a free kick in the 25th minute that resulted in a tap in for Philip Lambardo. To that point, Nazareth rarely advanced past midfield with the ball, but it still held the lead.

“You can’t give up the first goal against a team like this because it would make their season to beat us,” Halloran said. “I said you can’t be wasteful in front of the net because the more chances you miss the more they’re going to think they’re in the game.”

Carmel restored order with a quick response in the 27th minute. A Gabe Brouilette throw in went to Ian Heinrich, who put the ball across the box and gave Adam Cloe an easy finish from inside the six.

Five minutes later, the Corsairs completed the turnaround on another Brouilette throw. Heinrich was the assist man again, flicking the ball to Christian Avalos for the goal.

Brouilette’s long throws have resulted in a handful of goals so far this season.

“We’ve been working on it where I throw it to our center midfielder Ian Heinrich and he flicks it to the back post and we have guys running in to try and finish it,” Brouilette said.

“Whenever we go in the corner, throw ins are kind of like corner kicks so we just try to finalize on those chances that we get.”

Carmel stayed aggressive in the second half and took a two-goal lead when Heinrich emphatically headed in a Cloe corner kick.

However, the Roadrunners enjoyed their best stretch of the match following Carmel’s third goal. Things really got hectic when Nazareth pulled to within one in the final 10 minutes following a John McLachlan header.

After the Corsairs escaped with the narrow win, Halloran was frustrated his team didn’t learn from a similar performance against Notre Dame.

“The same thing happened to us last Saturday,” the coach said. “We played Notre Dame, we were up 1-0, we put it in cruise control and we were down 2-1 with 17 minutes to go. We had to battle back and we were lucky to win that game.”

“In conference we just think we only have to show up for the Benets, the Viators, the Marists of the world,” Max Heinrich said. “It happened against Notre Dame. The same type of performance against Notre Dame, we only won 3-2. We didn’t learn our lesson. We have to show up on this conference every day.”

The Corsairs have another one of those big ESCC games this Saturday, when they host Marist.