Chicagoland Soccer

Cadets fall to Glenbard North in SC East championship

By Darryl Mellema

After falling behind by two goals early on and then rallying to take a 3-2 lead, Marmion never really had a firm grip on Saturday's St. Charles East Invitational title match.

So it wasn't a complete surprise when that trophy found its way back into Glenbard North's hands at the end of a crazy 80 minutes and a 4-3 final scoreline.

“We got the result we should have got,” Marmion coach Kevin O'Connor said.

The Cadets (8-4-4) stumbled from the very opening minutes and were under instant and constant pressure from Glenbard North (7-5-2.) A trio of chances in the first 10 minutes eventually culminated when Ryan Anderson played an 11th-minute free kick on the ground outside of Marmion's defensive wall and Jon Colucci scored.

“That first goal was completely unacceptable,” O'Connor said. “We called for a four-man wall. They ended up with five in the wall and there were two guys unmarked and that's unacceptable. We didn't start playing until we were down 2-0.”

That second goal took a while in coming, though Marmion continued to struggle to create chances in the middle portion of the first half. Colucci provided the pass from which Scott Ryan broke into the right channel of the penalty area and scored.

“We finally started to possess the ball 25 minutes into the game and by that time, we were down 2-0,” O'Connor said. “If we played that way from the get-go and hadn't literally given them the first goal, maybe we ended up playing with a 3-1 lead instead of a 3-2 lead and it would have been all the difference in the game.”

Down 2-0, Marmion started the kind of rally that had propelled them to the tournament championship match. The first goal was an instant response to Ryan's goal – with Mick Maley passing to Joe Romanos, who halved Glenbard North's lead 38 seconds after the Panthers took a 2-0 lead and with 12 minutes still to play in the first half.

The Cadets' resurgence continued into the final minute of the first half, when Matt Switzer hit a free kick from just outside the penalty area that went past many bodies in the penalty area but ultimately went untouched by another player into the net.

Switzer was key in much of Marmion's improved play, working just in front of the team's three defenders.

“At halftime, we said we needed to find Switzer's and Maley's feet,” O'Connor said. “When we found their feet in midfield, we created a lot of good things. Matt Switzer's a helluva player. When we found their feet, we controlled the game.”

The start of the second half marked the most even portion of the match and Marmion eventually took the lead after 8 minutes when Maley sent a defense-splitting pass to Luke Elder, who shot low and hard into the goal.

Marmion thought it had a fourth goal in the 16th minute of the match but Mike Frasca's shot was ruled out for offside.

From that point, Glenbard North began to dominate again. Less than 30 seconds from the restart from the offside call, Colucci fed Yhehia Akif, who flicked the ball into the net. The game-winning goal was scored with 16 minutes to play and Anderson got the goal from a Ryan pass.

“It was a 4-3 game and I didn't think we played very well today,” O'Connor said. “We weren't sharp today. Mentally, we weren't sharp and we didn't play as well as we had in this tournament.”
O'Connor said the match highlighted some areas his team can work on as it prepares for the final matches of the regular season and gets ready for postseason play.

“The No. 1 teaching thing is that we're not a good enough team to come out and not play intense soccer for 80 minutes and get the result we want to get against good teams,” O'Connor said. “We did that against Burlington and got a great result. We did that against St. Charles East and got a great result. We did that for 70 minutes against Plainfield Central and it cost us. We did it for maybe 55 minutes today and got the result that we should have gotten.

“No. 2, we have to stay completely organized. We can't let guys walk in on our keeper off a set piece. And No. 3, we have to connect on more crossing balls into the box. If we do those three things, we'll be all right.”

Glenbard North coach Greg Chrisman said winning the St. Charles East Invitational was one of his team's preseason goals.

“We're happy,” Chrisman said. “Any time you can accomplish a goal, that's a benchmark for the year.”
The wild nature of the match was somewhat more pleasing to Glenbard North, in large part because they won the match.

“The swing of emotions today was incredible,” Chrisman said. “Being up 2-0 and letting them tie it up and then us going behind – it was great that they didn't give up.”

When things were going well for Glenbard North, Colucci was instrumental. He scored one of his team's goals and assisted on two of the others.

“He's our playmaker,” Chrisman said. “When there's a goal scored, he usually has something to do with it. We depend on him to make things happen. We also counted on him to extend our defense. We had him mark up on their best player in the last 10-15 minutes of the game and that helped us preserve the win.”