Chicagoland Soccer

Marmion tops Oswego on Jones, Graham tallies
By Matt Le Cren

After finishing fourth at the Class 2A state finals last year, the last thing Marmion expected was to get bumped up to Class 3A this fall.

But that’s exactly the reward the Cadets got and the state did them no favors by placing them in the ultra-tough West Chicago Sectional, where they were awarded the No. 10 seed.

But don’t cry for the Cadets just yet. Marmion (10-5-2), which is riding a 10-game unbeaten streak, could be a sleeper team. They earned an impressive road victory Saturday by knocking off Oswego 2-0. Oswego (9-5) is seeded ninth in the same sectional.

“It’s going to be a big challenge,” said Marmion sophomore Trevor Jones, who scored the game-winning goal against the Panthers. “We’re in with the Naperville schools and the Neuqua Valleys and the Waubonsies, so we’re going to have to step it up.”

Doing that doesn’t seem to be as far-fetched as it was early in the season. After a 2-5 start, the Cadets are 8-0-2 since then and have held their own against bigger schools and more physical teams.

“At the beginning of the season we were kind of skeptical, but now that we’re playing these teams, we’re competing with them,” Marmion goalie Brian Hymel said. “It’s good to know that we can go far in this [state] tournament after getting moved up to 3A.”

The Cadets scored both of their goals in the first half. Jones bagged his fourth of the season when he knocked in a cross from senior Claudio Jasso at the 31:49 mark, and junior Eddie Graham notched his third goal with 8:55 left in the period by tucking an 18-yard shot inside the left post off a feed from junior Flynn Collins.

“It’s a great win,” Marmion coach Ricky Del Toro said. “The [sectional] seedings came out and I thought we could have been seeded a little bit higher than what we got, but today we showed that we’re a pretty strong team.

“We got a shutout and scored two against a team that’s in our sectional. We’re on a good streak.”

A great defensive effort led by juniors Mick Wangler, Luke deSimone, senior Matt Switzer and freshman Joe Duffield succeeded in keeping the Panthers out of the penalty area for much of the match, but Hymel came up big on the few occasions the hosts did break through.

Hymel finished with five saves, two of which came back-to-back with 2:45 left in the first half. The senior dove to his left to stop a shot from distance off the foot of Rodolfo Moreno, then quickly got up and smothered Ryan Totsch’s rebound from point blank range.

“It’s all about the defense,” Hymel said. “The defense is playing well. They rely on my to make good saves, but I didn’t need to make many good saves because of the defense.

“But when it came down to it, I just had to play for the team. It’s nice to have a shutout against a team that’s higher than us in the sectional.”

Oswego came close to scoring only one other time, that coming with 32:40 remaining in the second half when Totsch’s 19-yard free kick hit the top of the crossbar and went over the net.

But Marmion still had to do a lot of defending. The match was filled with chippy play and plenty of yellow cards and the Cadets played shorthanded for 11 minutes after Jasso was ejected with 26:00 to go thanks to a second yellow card.

But Oswego could not capitalize and the sides played with 10 men each for the final 14:58 after the Panthers’ Mitch Lewis was ejected for his second yellow of the match.

“Today was really about finishing the game,” Del Toro said. “Yesterday we looked at film of a couple games where we should have finished teams off and we didn’t. Today that’s what we really worked on and we got it done, so I’m very proud of the boys.”

Hymel was proudest of central defenders deSimone and Duffield, who made a habit of heading or booting balls out of trouble.

“Our center defenders have been playing really well this entire year,” Hymel said. “Luke deSimone and Joe Duffield have been solid throughout the year. It’s nice to have two solid defenders in the back helping the team.”