Karayannis gets late game-winner vs. Leyden

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By Gary Larsen

Leyden is one of Illinois’ top teams this year, and Eagles coach Mark Valintis clearly saw the value of playing another top team in St. Charles North on Wednesday in a regular-season finale for both teams.

“We’ll just thank St. Charles North for reminding us of some of the things we still need to work on,” Valintis said.

The visiting North Stars (11-4-3) posted a 2-1 win in Northlake over the Eagles (14-4-3), built statistically on a pair of goals off the head of senior midfielder Nick Karayannis, the second of which came with only 13 seconds remaining in the game.

“Nick Karayannis hasn’t scored a ton this year but he’s another kid who can get his head on the ball,” North Stars coach Eric Willson said. “He put himself in a good position on both of those and put them in the back of the net for us, so it was great to see it pay off for him.”

It was a beauty of a free kick from senior mid Alex Behm and then a cross from Tyler Davis that set up Karayannis on his two goals, both in the second half.

A scoreless first half began with Leyden flirting with a few goals early on. Juan Recendez ran down a ball sent over the top and got behind the defense three minutes in, but North Stars keeper Garrett Creasor met him halfway and stuffed the shot.

Leyden’s Krystian Drozdz quickly followed up and fired a second shot that was cleared away by a North Stars defender.

“The first real good attempt of the game went our way but you can’t fault our guys for not getting the ball past a kid who’s 6-foot-6,” Valintis said of Creasor. “We tried to go low on him like we wanted to but it didn’t go our way.”

Leyden’s Oscar Chavarria nearly sprang Mario Nunez with a sweet through-ball at 23 minutes, but Creasor came out to beat Nunez to the ball.

The North Stars began to find feet and press into attacking territory after Leyden’s strong opening 10 minutes. Midfielders Behm, Karayannis, Connor Lefelstein, and Mike Winhoffer keyed the surge, in search of forwards Kyle Swanson and Tyler Davis.

“I’ve been on the team for three years now and usually we just kind of made sure we kept a zero on the board in the back, but we’ve been keeping (possession) this year,” North Stars senior defender Drew Smith said. “Tyler Davis coming back from club was huge for us, and Connor Lefelstein has been playing great.”

Finding a good look on net for North proved difficult in the first half, however, as the Leyden back three of Fernando Camacho, Moises Merlos, and Arthur Bernaciak battled, and keeper Marco Granda handled every ball sent in on him through 40 minutes.

The possession game that North worked to establish on Leyden’s grass field paid off three minutes into the second half, when Behm lined up a free kick near the right touchline, 30 yards from Leyden’s goal.

Karayannis buried Behm’s serve from 12 yards out, heading it inside the near post.

“It’s a tough place to play, not the best field we’ve ever played on, and the ball bounces around a lot so we couldn’t possess, and that’s how we want to play,” Smith said. “We just kind of found a way. It was a great ball by Alex Behm to Karayannis.”

Leyden went into Wednesday’s game having netted 53 goals in 20 games. The Eagles ran the table with a perfect 6-0 record to win this year’s West Suburban Conference, Gold Division title, and have been a dangerous attacking team in every game they’ve played this season.

“(Drozdz) is the real deal,” Willson said. “That kid’s a player, and I thought Justin Sanchez did a fantastic job with him. It was impressive to watch him stay with (Drozdz) for most of the night. So hats off to him and Garrett, and the whole back line did a real nice job.”

Smith dispossessed Recendez at 46 minutes just as the Leyden striker was on the edge of finding a dangerous shot, and the 1-0 lead held for North until the 60th minute, when a Leyden corner kick led to a game-tying goal.

Creasor initially punched a ball out that the Eagles fought to keep in the box, until Chavarria took it deep up the left side and sent a ball to the far post, where Drozdz found a way to get it past Creasor.

“On their goal, I dove in at the top of the box so that’s just a mistake on my part,” Smith said. “(Chavarria) walked past and then it was a Diego Maradona hand-to-god, hand-to-goal on the backside post. We’d like to get that one back if we could.”

And 24 hours after his side clinched the WSG title with a win over Addison Trail, Valintis was pleased with the fight his boys showed chasing a 1-0 deficit.

“In the second game in two nights, I didn’t think we’d have the energy to do that,” Valintis said. “I heard some of the guys expressing frustration out there, yelling ‘enough is enough’. I was extremely proud of our guys to get back even.

“Oscar probably had his best game of the season, if not the best that we’ve seen him play. Hitting balls through, sending guys in position, winning balls in the midfield – Oscar is half the size of the guys on their whole team but he made some great moves and put a great ball through. It wasn’t pretty but it bounced our way, and it was built on hustle.”

With time slipping away towards a 1-1 tie, the North Stars fought to get a ball deep on the left side to set up the Davis-to-Karayannis connection that gave them the win.

Afterwards, Smith applauded the play of one his back line mates, central defender Justin Stanko.

“I think Stanko played one of his best games all season,” Smith said. “That was a great game by him. He hasn’t lost a ball out of the air all season, so you can’t find many flaws in that. Whenever he’s told what to do, he does it. He always gets it done.”

Willson concurred.
 
“I thought Justin Stanko had a fantastic game tonight, not only with the free kicks he was sending in but he continues to win all those head balls,” Willson said. “He did all those little things you have to do in a game to help your side win it. He was awesome tonight.”

St. Charles North has a week off before taking on the winner between Willowbrook and Elk Grove in a regional semifinal match. The North Stars are the No. 2 seed of this year’s Bartlett sectional.

Like every soccer team, North has seen the typical ups and downs of a high school soccer season.

“I think we play in one of the toughest conferences there is. You come off of the Barrington and Pepsi tournaments and you feel like maybe you can take a breath, but you can’t,” Willson said. “It’s bound to happen in a long season where you hit some bumps, so the ability to rebound off of that is important and I think we’re doing that. Whenever we’ve had a loss the guys were ready to get right back to training, the next day. The end of this season couldn’t have played out better for us.”

Leyden squares off with St. Patrick in a regional opener on Tuesday, as the No. 2 seed of the Evanston sectional. The Eagles won their first outright conference title since 1993 this season. Leyden shared the WSG crown in 2006 with Morton and Downers Grove South, and shared the title with DGS in 2009.

“I knew we’d be a good team but I didn’t know we’d be as good as we are right now,” Valintis said. “I knew it would be competitive in the conference so to run the table like we did is pretty special.

“I thought our back three was solid again tonight. They played 70 minutes last night and all 80 tonight, against a team that was better, faster, and physically stronger. (North) reminds me of Oak Park. We may run into another team like this down the road so it’s a good game for us. The kids are disappointed with the loss tonight, as they should be, so all we can do is learn from it and move on.”