THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2006
Sectional Championships For Hersey, Maine South
By DWIGHT ESAU
Journal Reporter
In this game of boys high school soccer, it's all about chemistry, attitude, learning roles, and playing under pressure.
Both coaches Tim Spiegel of Maine South and Darren Llewellyn of Hersey talked about these qualities after achieving spectacular sectional championships last weekend in the Class AA state tournament.
For the South Hawks it was the first sectional title since 2001, and for Hersey, it was their first sectional title ever.
South played Rockford Boylan in Rockford in one super-sectional Monday night, and Hersey met Warren at Lake Zurich in another. The state finals are at North Central College in Naperville this weekend, Nov. 3-4.
Both sectional games ended in 2-1 scores, with South scoring late to break a tie and then withstanding a late Larkin rush, and Hersey scoring twice early and holding on for an entire half against Stevenson with an outstanding defensive scheme and effort.
South's Dan Gerrits grabbed a rebound of a free kick in the 11th minute against Larkin at Stream wood's Millennium Field and banged it home for the first Hawk goal in a steady drizzle on Oct. 26.
Larkin tied it on a spectacular header of a free kick in the 49th minute, then the teams spent most of the next 20 minutes jousting in the midfield. Paul Fafendyk scored a goal for South in the 60th minute, but was ruled offside. Arthur Dinverno sent a point blank shot into an open net in the 43rd minute, but his ball hit the right post.
Meanwhile, Paul Michael Kulnig was making his share of big saves in the Hawk end.
In the 74th minute, however, the Hawks put some big-time pressure on the Royals, and it paid off with a corner kick. An accurate blast by Nick Kulas came right to Tom Sullivan 10 feet in front, and he flicked it in for the game-winner.
Kulnig deflected a tough shot up and over the Hawk net to preserve the win a few minutes later.
"The corner kick was perfect and I was surprised it came to me, but I managed to get my left foot on it and it went in," Sullivan said. "This in an unbelievable feeling, I just can't describe it."
"These guys just believe in themselves and they play so well together and so well under pressure," said Spiegel. He said he dropped one forwards back to help out the backline in the last six minutes, but other than that, he just let his players survive the final Larkin assault.
As usual, the Hawk backline of Danny Colapietro, Mark Lesny, Leo Beitz, Sven Gartner, John Schaefer, and Billy Vogg was solid except for Larkin's very athletic header goal.
South was 19-2-3 going into their super-sectional victory Monday night.
Hersey, on the other hand, played a DEFENSE that frustrated Stevenson and won the Huskies their first-ever sectional soccer title.
Andreas Laxgang and Brian Spencer mounted a big counter-attack in the 35th minute of the first half, and Laxgang banged in an accurate cross for the first Huskie goal. About a minute later, Mike Mueller found a corner kick at his feet from six feet away and he managed to slot it in for a 2-0 lead.
Mueller's shot turned out to be the game-winner after Stevenson scored on a penalty kick to make it 2-1.
Tim O'Connor marked Stevenson all-stater Stefan Antonijevic with a lot of help from defenders Kent Busse, Myles Wilson, and Brian Gierman, along with Mueller.
This was the 12th straight win or tie for the Huskies since a 4-6 start. "We weren't playing all that badly, but we were making mistakes and having breakdowns at key moments," said Llewellyn, who took over the Hersey program this year after 20-plus years coaching club and at Wheeling. "But in the Fremd game, when we outplayed them but got beat by a breakaway in the last minute, we got turned around. We finally got the guys to understand their roles and figured out how to avoid mistakes."
The Huskies made the state's Class AA Sweet Sixteen for the first time this year.