Huskies lose Cappuccitti in loss to Fremd
By Dan Santaromita

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Fremd started the season winless in its first eight matches. The Vikings have since won six of seven matches, all against Mid Suburban League opposition.

Thursday’s dominating performance at Hersey, a 2-0 win, showed the Vikings have the look of a dangerous team. Fremd (6-7-2, 6-3 MSL) got second half goals from Brock Vonholt and Zach Schoffstall.

“I felt that was probably one of our better performances of the year,” Fremd coach Steve Keller said. “The guys were alert. They were sharp. They were focused. They were communicating. They were ready to play and when they do that there was some pretty soccer in the attack, there was some effective soccer in the defensive half. Our goalie made two good stops and we created a lot of opportunities.”

Hersey (8-8, 5-3) lost key playmaker Johnny Cappuccitti to an ankle injury received on a hard tackle early in the first half. Without him anchoring the Huskies’ attack, Fremd was able to keep the ball in Hersey’s half.

“It takes out controlling the middle because he controls the middle pretty well,” Hersey defender Jonothon Dickey said. “Without him I guess we were pretty lost for this game.

“When we got the ball in our defense we couldn’t pass it out and control the ball and keep it up top. We just kick balled it out and they kicked it back. It was in our side the whole game because we couldn’t control the ball.”

The Huskies were able to hold off Fremd for the first 40 minutes even though the Vikings came close to scoring on a few occasions. A late counter almost gave Hersey the lead, but Vikings’ goalkeeper Steven Soltykiewicz (3 saves) made a nice save on Dan Gramer’s near post shot.

Vonholt broke the deadlock in the 54th minute with a laser beam of a free kick. He drilled the ball from 30 yards out and it went through the Hersey wall, just as he planned.

“I usually aim at their heads because people usually move from a shot coming at their heads,” Vonholt said.

Fremd stayed on the attack and nearly doubled the lead in the 59th minute off a corner kick. Lucas Cholewa headed over Hersey keeper Irving Velasquez (11 saves), but Dickey was there to cover for Hersey, heading away on the goal line.

Eight minutes later the Vikings would add to the lead, and it came from a great build up. Michael Eschbach laid off the ball for a streaking John Smith around midfield. Smith dribbled all the way into the Hersey box and spotted an unmarked Schoffstall, who calmly finished.

Many players stepped up for Fremd, including seniors Spencer Janes, Jeremy Kosacz and Jon Magnusson.

“This is probably one of the better teams we’ve played and we completely dominated the game so that’s a really good sign,” Magnusson said.

Hersey now heads into Friday’s MSL East showdown at Buffalo Grove, which leads the Huskies by three points at the top of the division. Hersey coach Darren Llewellyn said the game is basically the division championship game. He knows he will have to tinker with his lineup with Cappuccitti out.

“Hopefully the boys will come with the attitude that we come with some games where we really just fight to the end and we don’t make those mental errors,” Llewellyn said.

Hersey is still focused on winning the division, but Fremd is out of the MSL West race and is hoping to keep the recent hot streak going into the postseason. Despite the lack of results in the early part of the season the Vikings never lost confidence after losing five one-goal games against strong teams.

“It was definitely difficult, but it’s just working through it and getting things done,” Vonholt said. “I think it’s just over the whole season we’ve been realizing we’re better than we think we are.”

“It means all the more when you start scoring and winning games once you come back from that kind of defeat,” Magnusson added. “Once we won our first game we knew that we needed to just keep winning more. We’ll be fine for the playoffs. We’ll do really well.”