Vikings use late goal to pull out win over rival Bulldogs

By Darryl Mellema

As they got ready to play on Thursday against Batavia in the latest renewal of their long-running rivalry, Geneva's players watched some videos to get fired up.

One of these showed the U.S. Team celebrating Landon Donovan's late, late match-winner against Algeria in this past summer's World Cup. That goal sparked celebrations on the pitch, in the stands and in pockets across the country.

Just a few hours later, the Vikings did their best to reproduce the drama Donovan displayed in dispatching Algeria when Andrew Walton netted with only 2:34 to play in a match that was tied 1-1.

The move happened very quickly, with the ball coming wide on the left through Craig Hancock to Josh Poythress, who got free on the wing.

Poythress sent the ball infield to Brady Wahl, who worked inside a defender and moved into the left side of the Batavia penalty area.

As he neared the end line, Wahl sent a sharp cross on the ground to his right and Walton met that ball near the center of the six-yard box and scored.

"It was similar to another goal we scored where (Wahl) dribbled to the end line, the keeper and defender came out and slid and I was just there to put it in," Walton said.

As Wahl made his move, Walton got himself ready for the cross he knew that was going to come.

"I held my run and I waited for the space to develop," Walton said. "Then I went in and got the ball and put it in the back of the net. I just read the play."

Walton admitted he "topped the ball" but the contact was enough to send both goal-scorer and his teammates into goal-scoring celebrations.

And if the Vikings didn't reach the piling-on frenzy shown by Donovan and his mates in South Africa perhaps that's a good thing since excessive celebrations are frowned upon in high school soccer as taunting.

And to be sure, the Geneva and Batavia raised the intensity of Thursday, it never became a bitter match. As always, the match ended with handshakes and discussions, from the team's coaches to their players.

But that doesn't mean the Vikings didn't want to win the match, which was the first Upstate Eight Conference River Division encounter for the former Little Seven and Suburban Prairie Conference foes.

"They're our neighbors," Walton said. "It's a pretty big rivalry."

As Hancock said, "that's one of the best teams we've played. A 2-1 victory's not a big margin. They're a great team and it was a good win we had to play to beat them.

"Hopefully, we can beat (St. Charles) East and win The Fox again this year."

The Fox goes to the team from St. Charles North, St. Charles East, Geneva and Batavia that has the best collective results against the other three teams.

So far, Geneva (8-6-1, 2-1) has wins against St. Charles North and Batavia.

Geneva played well throughout the match and took the lead 16 minutes in when Wahl sent a free kick that Matthew Butz headed in from the right side of the goal back to the left.

As well as they played for 40 minutes, the Vikings found themselves tied 90 seconds into the second half when Cody Balogh scored a headed goal for the Bulldogs (7-6-2, 2-2.)

"I think it took us awhile to really get our focus back," Geneva coach Ryan Estabrook said. "We knew that Batavia put a seven-spot on Larkin the other night just in the second half alone and it started in the first two minutes.

"I think Batavia did a nice job of answering the bell at halftime and we definitely didn't. That's something we need to talk about going into the future."

It took the Vikings some time to find their feet in the match again. When they did, players such as Wahl and Hancock were spreading the ball wide, especially to Poythress on the left wing.

"We were trying to exploit the outsides," Hancock said. "With the flat four (defense), there was a lot of room on the outsides when it came to the middle third of their side. Hitting the outside was the key for our game today."

Estabrook said his team didn't get the ball to Poythress as much as he would have liked, though the tactic certainly worked for the game-winning goal.

"We know that they played four across the back and really didn't have a wing midfielder to match up with him," Estabrook said. "We talked at halftime how we wanted to get the ball on his foot and run at their defense.

"I think if we had done a better job tactically of doing what we talked about, it maybe would have been a different ballgame in the second half."

With nine minutes to play, Wahl fed Walton and forced a superb save from Ben Steskal. The Vikings worked that combination again as the clock ticked under three minutes, and this time they scored.

"We tried to pretty much dominate through the middle," Hancock said. "All of us worked hard, played hard and that got us the win. We gave 100 percent, all of us. We eventually found our game, got the ball down and won the game."

With the win, the Vikings have a five-match winning streak and has outscored the opposition 19-4 in that handful of matches.

Geneva has a weekend without matches before traveling to Larkin on Monday for the start of a week that sees a trip to St. Charles East on Wednesday and a visit to Peoria Notre Dame next Saturday.