Lyons Township guts out a 1-0 win at Glenbard West

By Gary Larsen

Shove 22 soccer players inside a phone booth and things can get pretty rough.

The pitch at Glenbard West’s Memorial Field isn’t exactly a phone booth, but the 106-by-54 yard field sure seemed like it to a Lyons Township team that played on the vast expanse of Toyota Park on Sunday.

“You put big kids on a tiny field, and there’s going to be contact and you’re not going to see good soccer,” Lyons Township coach Paul Labbato said. “You’ve just got to survive when you come out to this field.”

“You have to get your goal and defend. This was a survival game. They could have tied it at any point, so we’re excited to get out of here with a conference win.”

The Lions improved to 11-2 overall and 2-0 in West Suburban Silver play with the 1-0 win. They also topped a solid Downers Grove North team 4-3 on September 15.

Luke Skertich scored the game’s lone goal when Kyle Kurfirst sent a diagonal ball forward from midfield to the right side of the Hilltoppers’ penalty area.

Skertich, West’s goalkeeper and a defender converged, the ball skipped past, and Skertich buried an empty-netter.

For 80 minutes, the game played out to a physical affair with little creative possession involved. The Hilltoppers made one final dangerous run just inside the Lions’ 18 near the end of regulation, but LT goalkeeper Sully Fox flew off his line and thwarted the play.

With the win, Fox and the boys in back for LT posted their 9th shutout in 13 games.

“Glenbard West is scrappy, and they always make it a game,” McGuinness said. “Whether we play with three in the back or four in the back, we just try to keep everyone connected and I think we’ve done a great job of that.”

“Everyone can play with their feet, everyone can pass out of the back, and (Fox) makes the saves that he has to.”

After battling top-ranked Neuqua Valley in Sunday’s Pepsi Showdown title game for two overtimes, and then gutting out a 1-0 conference win on Thursday, the Lions will next spend a leisurely vacation weekend in Milwaukee.

They’ll take on state power Marquette high school on Saturday.

“I’m really excited for that game,” McGuinness said. “It should be fun and I’m looking forward to seeing how we match up against them.”

With their only two losses of the year both coming to unbeaten Neuqua Valley, the Lions will continue to be tested in the coming weeks.

“I think we proved in the Neuqua game that we belong, and that we can hang with them,” Labbato said. “Saturday will be another test to prove we belong. It will be a matter of getting it done.”

“And then we have Hinsdale Central, and Oak Park, and Morton, so it doesn’t stop.”

Intensity ebbs and flows for the best of teams during every soccer season, and the midpoint of the season is always gut-check time.

“We’re playing a couple hours every day so it’s tough to keep the intensity up,” McGuinness said. “But as a team we come together and we’re always pushing each other, and make sure everyone is working hard at all times.”

If there’s a better safety valve in back in Illinois than McGuinness, good luck finding him. The senior was his usual reliable self throughout the win over the Hilltoppers.

“The only time he ever makes a mistake is when he’s not focused, and he loses focus less than one percent of the time during a whole season,” Labbato said. “He doesn’t make mistakes.”

“Every touch is deadened and perfect, every call he makes is the right call – he’s a complete player. We’re happy to have him.”

Man of the match: Luke Skertich

By Gary Larsen

Luke Skertich brought a quality to Thursday’s game at Glenbard West that Lyons Township coach Paul Labbato wanted to utilize.

And he scored the game-winning goal of the match to boot.

“He scored a goal, and we had him at defensive mid today,” Labbato said. “Luke Skertich played well. He goes hard to the ball, and this was kind of his game.”

Skertich saw considerable time on the field in the 1-0 win.

“Not afraid, straight to the ball, wins everything and does the dirty work – it’s his kind of game, and we had him out there a long time today because I felt it was a game in which he could excel," Labbato said.

Skertich was happy to contribute to the win, but would have liked to see his squad play on a larger field than the one they battled on at Glenbard West.

“I like the intensity but our style of play doesn’t really fit this field,” Skertich said of the smallish field at Glenbard West. “It would be nice to possess, but on this kind of field that’s a little bit hard.”