Crystal Lake South's late goal stuns Lake Park

By Eddie Burns

What started out so promising for Lake Park finished in complete disaster.

It took the Lancers all of 32 seconds into their match to score against Crystal Lake South on Thursday night and they appeared to be off and running.

But they weren’t.

The Gators eventually pulled even midway through the second half and then delivered a numbing blow when they scored the winning goal with 8.2 seconds remaining to steal a 2-1 victory from the Lancers in the featured match of the Lake Park Classic at a soggy Krupke Field.

“It just hurts to lose a game like that,” said Lake Park sophomore midfielder Tim Adelman, who gave the Lancers the lead less than a minute into the match. “We should have beaten them.”

When Lake Park (1-1) came up empty on consecutive corner kicks with approximately 30 seconds remaining, it was becoming pretty evident that the match was going to finish in a tie.

However, the Gators (3-0) quickly gained possession and moved the ball quickly up field through the wet grass. Crystal Lake South forward Charlie Oliver made a hard charge toward Lake Park’s net while he slipped the ball past the Lancers’ defense right to the foot of teammate Gono Gutmann, who struck home the winner.

Lake Park coach Norm Hillner was still trying to figure out what happened in the closing seconds.

“I don’t know if our players (stopped) because they thought there was a foul or something that wasn’t called,” Hillner said. “Then boom. They make a cross and finish it off.”
Hillner said there was no excuse for not playing hard until the end.

“By the time they are varsity players they should know how to finish a game,” he said. “You don’t expect on the varsity level for that to be a problem.”
It didn’t look like Lake Park would have any issues at all in the early stages.

A few seconds after Crystal Lake South kicked off and sent the ball into the Lake Park end, the Lancers countered with a quick attack. It was capped when David Admire’s through ball found Adelman in position for him to put a quick shot past Gators’ goalie David Walsh (8 saves).

The goal was scored with such ease that it didn’t seem out of the question that the Lancers would strike again, but they didn’t.

Instead, Lake Park played a majority of the remainder of match out of character.

“We were trying to knock it down the middle and try to get a breakaway type of stuff and that is not our style,” Hillner said.

Lancers’ senior goalie Marty Lupou (seven saves) made several nice stops to help Lake Park maintain a 1-0 lead at intermission.

The complexion of the match changed in the 57th minute when Lake Park’s Nick Ricciardi was whistled for hard foul in the penalty area and the Gators were awarded a penalty kick.
Gutmann took the attempt for the Gators, who were 10-14-1 last season, and beat Lupou to forge a tie.

The Lancers began to press and play aggressive. Their hard work almost paid off in the 52nd minute when David Admire’s restart found teammate Jimmy Albright’s head, but Albright’s attempt hit the post. A few seconds later, Alec Kubica had a clear path to the net, but his shot was blocked by a defender.

Minutes later Admire and Mike Keane had attempted shots stopped by Crystal Lake South goalie David Walsh.

“We just weren’t shooting enough,” Adelman said. “We didn’t put enough pressure on their keeper and when we started shooting it was too late. It was just a lack of communication.”
Hillner said there are plenty of holes that need to be fixed and quick.

“We’ve got some issues,” Hillner said. “We have to fix some things. We had breakdowns all the way across the field. There were some things offensively we didn’t do. There were things in the midfield we didn’t do. There are some things on the defensive end that we didn’t do.”

One of the few bright spots for Hillner was watching Matt Graf come into the match and play hard the final 20 minutes. Graf is coming back from an injury.

2009 Schedule