Red Devils' fast start keys win over LT
By Matt Le Cren

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A silver brick was the on the line Saturday afternoon, but rivals Hinsdale Central and Lyons Township played like they were vying for a gold medal.

In a match as thrilling as it was historic, host Hinsdale Central stunned the visitors by scoring three first-half goals before hanging on for a pulsating 3-2 victory in Hinsdale.

The victory gave the Red Devils the inside track to the West Suburban Conference Silver Division championship and coach Mike Wiggins the 250th victory of his career.

“It had a lot of intensity,” Hinsdale Central senior forward Mike Krohn said. “I can’t remember the last time I felt so good about a win. It’s a feeling that can’t be described right now. I’ve got to think about it for a while. It’s just really great.”

Krohn assisted on the second goal and scored what turned out to be the clincher for Hinsdale Central (8-3-2, 3-0), which snapped the Lions’ seven-game winning streak and ended a three-game losing streak to LT, which still leads the regular-season series 22-18-4.

The rivalry, which is among the five oldest soccer series in Illinois, dates back to 1975, but in 2008 Wiggins and LT coach Paul Labbato hatched the idea to commemorate the annual game by having the two sides play for the Silver Brick.

“Like the bricks of a building, it serves as the foundation of really what our communities stand for in terms of raising youth players and the game, things like sportsmanship, hard work and dedication to the game and love of the game,” Wiggins said. “We won it the first year and hadn’t seen it since. We knew it was there because we’d see it once a year, but it’s back and the kids couldn’t be more excited.”

The two teams were supported by an estimated 800 fans, which included youth soccer players from both towns. They had a lot to cheer about.

“Paul and I are always always trying to think of ways we can make the game nice for the kids, with the brick, with the AYSO night making it an event for both communities and the fact that our guys have the utmost respect for them,” Wiggins said. “[The Lions] talk about how much they respect our program, so going into it there’s already this feeling of mutual competitiveness in a very sportsmanlike and respectful environment, so what you get in the end is just a great game.”

That it was. Three of the first four shots went in, with the Red Devils striking first at the 28:54 mark of the opening period when they cleared an LT corner and sprung junior striker Christian Meyer on a counterattack up the right side.

Meyer raced stride-for-stride with a defender, but kept the ball and cut to his left as he entered the box and beat LT goalie Peter Nolan with an eight-yard shot.

The Lions (10-3-1, 3-1) retaliated only 89 seconds later when Jack Thomas headed home a long throw-in from Frankie Kocimski, only to see the Red Devils retake the lead on an identical play when Meyer nodded home a throw-in from Krohn (who coincidentally, wears the same number, 10, as Kocimski).

The slippery Meyer only took three shots but he narrowly missed recording a hat trick when his header off a long free kick by Evan Floersch struck the crossbar with 9:00 to go. Meyer’s scoring prowess is what the Red Devils lacked in recent years.

“He puts them on the net every time he gets a shot,” Krohn said. “He’s a great player.
We usually weren’t as fast in transition [in the past]. We wouldn’t attack quite as fast, but now that we’ve got a guy like that who can take guys on, it’s a great aspect to our team.

“We got a couple good chances and we set them up pretty good. We’ve been working on all of our corner kicks and throw-ins a lot and we’ve been doing some new plays. All of it just worked out and came into place.”

Krohn played a major role in that and scored in a similar fashion to Meyer when he took a pass from Louis St. John, raced up the right wing and despite having two defenders on him calmly rolled a shot past the charging Nolan to make it 3-1 with 3:32 to go before intermission.

“All I really had to do was run my fastest and I just had a good shot,” Krohn said. “Louis put a good ball over his head to get it to me. It was a nice assist and I just finished. It felt real great.”

But not to Labbato.

“They had two breakaways and a throw-in and they were dangerous on the breaks,” Labbato said. “One of them, unfortunately for us, was a counterattack off our own corner kick. We had the corner kick and maybe a little momentum and they win the ball and play it out, and he takes it 55 yards and beats the keeper. I hate getting countered on the corner kick but that’s what happened.

“We talked about at halftime how we could get back in this match and what mentally we had to look like, because Hinsdale had it mentally. They were ready to kind of pounce at the beginning. They were strong in the air, fast to the ball, doubled the ball and kind of controlled us in the first half I think by imposing themselves on us.”

That changed dramatically in the second half, which was controlled almost entirely by the Lions. That did not surprise the Red Devils.

“We talked at halftime about how Lyons Township was going to come out firing and we knew the first 10 minutes especially they would want to get a goal back,” Hinsdale Central goalie Mitchell Meyer said. “We held them off for the first 10 minutes, but the trend continued and we didn’t really need goals so I guess we just focused defensively on clearing balls and just held them off.”

But it wasn’t easy. The Red Devils managed just one shot in the final 40 minutes, a counterattack by freshman Rigoberto Rojas that went high from 23 yards out with 12 minutes left.

The Lions squeezed off nine of their 12 shots in the half and cut the deficit to one when Spiros Kass headed home a Ben Larson corner kick with 28:11 to play.

LT was unlucky not to tie the game with 16:00 to go. Peter Kass fired an open shot from the right side of the box off the crossbar and the rebound went to the wide-open Brett Heimerdinger on the left side. Kocimski, who was standing in front of Mitchell Meyer, dropped to the ground to avoid impeding Heimerdinger, but the one-timer from the LT co-captain struck the prone Kocimski and was eventually cleared.

“We had a lot of opportunities and it’s so unfortunate,” Labbato said. “It’s probably the first time I’ve ever seen someone lay down to get out of the way of an easy goal and get hit. That’s 3-3 there, but that didn’t go in and their keeper played great.”

Indeed, both Hinsdale Central goalies played well. Starter Harvey Pranger had to make only two saves in the first half, but both were great stops. The first was a diving effort to knock a bullet from Kocimski in the 11th minute around the left post and the second a point-blank denial on a volley from Spiros Kass.

Mitchell Meyer came up with six saves in the second half and also did well to punch several dangerous throws and corner kicks out of danger.

“When we got it to 3-1, we knew there was no chance for us to settle down because I can’t think of a team that is more technical in tighter spaces than LT,” Wiggins said. “So the fact that they do such a good job of being composed and knocking it around, we just had to continue to get back to what we’re good at and it’s just making sure that we’re pressuring and defending well. I felt we did a good job of that. A lot of guys really stepped up and had nice games.”

Defenders Ryan Melloni, Ryan Schwarz and Floersch were especially solid, holding the Lions at bay even while playing shorthanded after Christian Meyer was ejected after picking up his second yellow card with 3:16 left. Melloni left the game with 18:34 to go after crashing face-first into a trainer’s cart that was inexplicably parked only a few yards off the sideline. He returned 10 minutes later.

Wiggins now has a record of 250-141-49 in 19 seasons at Downers Grove South and Hinsdale Central.

“That’s great,” Mitchell Meyer said of the milestone. “I hope we can use this as a springboard to win conference.”

“We talked about it before the game,” said Wiggins, whose squad has won seven of its last eight games. “We said this is going to be one of those games where you just had this feeling like it had a memorable feel to it.”

The Lions won’t have to wait long for what should be another memorable match, one they hope will have a different outcome. LT travels to Toyota Park Sunday to face reigning state champion Morton in the final of the Pepsi Showdown.

“That’s what this match is usually like; very close, very passionate, a big crowd,” Labbato said. “Our kids did a nice job in the second half and that’s what we’ve got to build on. Now we’ve got to turn around and play at Toyota Park in 12 hours.”