Hornets roll in regional opener
By Gary Larsen

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Despite mass second-half substitutions by Hinsdale South coach James VanDenburgh on Saturday, senior central defender Jordan Wood played all 80 minutes of the Hornets’ 6-1 win over Kenwood.

“He never comes off the field,” VanDenburgh said, “unless he gets a yellow card. He’s a guy that has been in there every single game, giving it his all.”

Wood is happy to oblige.

“I’m used to staying on the field. Being a defender all these years, you get used to it,” Wood said. “Besides, being a defender, you don’t have to run around as much as (attacking) players.”

Those attacking players came out fast from the gate for the Hornets on Saturday in Darien, in opening-round play of this year’s Class 3A Hinsdale South Regional. Hinsdale South used an aggressive early attack to take a 3-0 lead before the clock even hit the 20-minute mark.

Wood had a great view of the Hornets’ attack all day long.

“We were able to switch it through the back cleanly today, which is nice, and we were able to look up and find some passes through the middle,” Wood said. “We’re connecting more now. We have team chemistry and we’re able to push it down the sidelines, and we’re making nice passes back and forth through the middle.”

The Hornets took to their home field with energy and struck at three minutes, when Jeremy Leganski got his head on a Nathaniel Michaelis corner kick at the far post, burying his sixth goal of the year.

Four minutes later, the Hornets’ Marko Ristic scored on a head shot from almost the same spot Leganski scored from, thanks to a beauty of a cross from teammate Dean Serritella.

“I really liked the Dean Serritella to Marko Ristic connection,” VanDenburgh said. “We’ve been looking for that all season so it was nice to see that today.”

South went up 3-0 at 19 minutes thanks first to John Kotsiantos, and second to Lucas Carlson. Kotsiantos belted a free kick off the crossbar from 30 yards out and Carlson located the rebound, leaving no doubt from 10 yards out with a wicked shot to the back netting.

The 14th-seeded Hornets simply never let the 18th-seeded Broncos be a part of the conversation on Saturday.

“We wanted to come out in the first five minutes and show them who’s boss,” Leganski said. “We’ve been improving on getting our defense involved, and today we were swinging it a lot more, building from the back, and that’s the foundation we need. Then we distributed it well today and our forwards were making good runs.”

Hornets forward George Carioscia made it 4-0 early in the second half when he poked a ball past two defenders and deposited a shot between the Kenwood keeper and the near post from 10 yards out. Leganski netted his seventh goal of the year on penalty kick at 55 minutes, after he was taken down in the box.

The Hornets let a shutout slip away in the game’s 69th minute, but it took a great shot from distance by Kenwood’s Brendan Mullholland to do it. South’s Austin Mantey buried a freekick bomb of his own in the game’s waning minutes for the final total.

“We’ve just tried to stay focused on getting better every game,” VanDenburgh said. “We were able to connect and do some of the things we’ve been working on, and even after we built a lead we stayed focused on staying in playoff mode.”

The Hornets will need to stay in that mode to pull off an upset of second-seeded Lyons Township in Tuesday’s regional semifinal. On Sept. 27, the Hornets hosted LT and kept the game at 1-0 for a good while before the Lions found two more goals in a 3-1 win.

“We need to clog the middle because in the last game they had a lot of open shots,” Leganski said of Lyons Township. “We have to contest them. You can’t give them wide open shots because they will nail it. But we’re pumped. We’re excited that we’ll be playing them at home.”

Wood agreed.

“I remember they were down our throats a lot, so the guys in the middle will have to come back and mark,” senior defender Jordan Wood said. “They’re big and fast but if we play the game as well as we can, we can rise to that challenge.”

VanDenburgh was happy with the day’s work put in my Leganski, Wood, and outside defender Kenny Ida, “and Jon Kotsiantos had that nice freekick, and he’s done that three or four times for us this year,” VanDenburgh said.

“We’ve had a consistent lineup and we’ve had players develop into their roles and help the team out. We’ll let them enjoy this win for a day but really, we’re just ready to get at it again.”