Youthful Larkin blanks rival Storm

By Darryl Mellema

It must be said that there have not been many matches where South Elgin has been comprehensively defeated this year.

For that matter, there haven't been many matches where the Storm ended on the losing end at all in the 2009 campaign.

But Monday was a night when the opposition walked off comfortable winners. And that winner was one of the Storm's closest rivals, Larkin.

The Royals defeated the Storm 3-0 in an Upstate Eight Conference match at Elgin's Memorial Field, just the third loss of the season this year for South Elgin.

"It was well-deserved," South Elgin coach Mark Neville said. "Larkin plays tough and they had freshmen or sophomores out there and we didn't match them effort-wise."

South Elgin (11-3-1, 4-2) fell behind 2-0 at halftime thanks to Larkin goals by Danny Leyva and Salvador Vargas. More importantly than than the goals was the play, which favored the Royals.

"Even at 50 percent, sometimes we've won 4-0 or 5-0," Neville said. "But with a conference game and the rivalry, I think we thought we could do that kind of half-throttle kind of play, and this is what happens."

Larkin got a match-killing third goal 14 minutes into the second half. Roberto Torres sent the ball forward to Manny Aguilar, who sent the ball back to Billy Weber, who scored.

"We've got four freshmen and four sophomores on the squad and they play significant minutes," Larkin coach Ken Hall said. "As time has gone on, they have gotten better and better."

Late in the season, Larkin has again seen the need to come and give 100 percent all the time. Neville thought it was a lesson that didn't need reinforcement.

"We had that lesson at Neuqua a couple of weeks ago," Neville said. "I thought that was enough to prove a point. Now we have this in a game with an arch-rival."

Larkin (3-11-3, 1-5-1), with a predominance of freshmen and sophomores on its roster, can look to Monday's result as a harbinger of things to come as the youthful squad matures.

"That was as nice as we've passed the ball all year," Hall said. "We had some through balls going forward. We had a lot of energy and we were going forward."

There is a chance Larkin and South Elgin could meet in the IHSA postseason. Should Larkin defeat Rockford Jefferson in the opening match of the Class 3A Huntley Regional, the Royals would meet the Storm in the regional semifinals.

"Hopefully we made a little bit of a statement against them tonight," Hall said.

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