Lyons Township rolls past H-F

By Curt Herron

After seeing his squad suffer their first defeat to Neuqua Valley last Saturday, Lyons Township coach Paul Labbato hoped to see his players respond to that setback in a good way.

Compounding matters was the fact that regular keeper Sully Fox got injured in Wednesday's match at St. Charles East and LT's coach used the two games to work on things defensively.

Despite that, the Lions were able to make positive strides this week as they followed up on a 2-1 win over the Saints with a 5-0 triumph over Homewood-Flossmoor on Friday in LaGrange.

"We had an interesting week," Labbato said. "Basically we had our backup keeper Kevin Beglen take us through the week and he did a great job and got us two wins. And we're sorting out our defense by getting used to playing the 4-4-2 so it's been a transition.

"I'm glad that we got through this week and were able to keep the boys' spirits up. Other than our goalkeeper, who will be fine, we're actually getting healthy since we had a couple of kids who haven't played yet this year who are on the verge of being back.

"Give credit to Homewood since they played a very good offside trap and we were just not used to getting out of our own end at midfield and going on breakaways. And their goalkeeper played very well in those situations since he was under a ton of pressure."

The Lions (4-1) put the pressure on the Vikings from the outset, peppering H-F's goal with a variety of threatening shots.

Things really picked up about 13 minutes into the match when Horacio Sanchez fired off a liner and headed a ball toward the net a short time later.

LT finally broke through with 24:47 remaining in the opening half when Brian Heimerdinger lined a free kick in from just beyond the top of the box.

"It was nice that we rebounded off of the Neuqua game with St. Charles East and then also got the victory today," Heimerdinger said. "The St. Charles East game was tough because we were supposedly one of their biggest matches so we had to fight through that.

"Obviously the loss to Neuqua kind of brought our morale down a little bit and let us know that even though we're up there, we're not quite there yet. We still have a lot to work on to compete with them but we hope to be ready whenever we see them again.

"I really like the chemistry that we have within our team since a lot of kids are close together. In past years a lot of us haven't mixed together very well but this year everyone is close and hangs out with each other. Things feel a lot better as a whole."

The hosts also connected on their next good chance as Sanchez scored from close range with 22:26 left in the half following a pass from Chris Meingast.

Sanchez and Elliot Borge both were stopped on good opportunities while H-F finally got one of its few shots on keeper Kevin Beglen midway through the half.

Lyons' advantage grew to 3-0 with 18:08 remaining before the break after Borge headed an attempt in for a score.

LT finally made the most of one of its many breakaways with 5:58 left before the break as Hector Godinez got free and scored on a short shot.

Godinez added two more potential scoring chances and Peter Gabrek also had a shot on goal during the final five minutes of the initial half.

It was more of the same after the break as the Lions again sent at least a dozen threatening shots toward H-F's net.

Andrew Aviles, Peter Kralovec-Kirchherr, Kyle Kurfirst and Luke Skertich started the barrage with good shots in the first 15 minutes.

Danny Paice, Uriel Cabrera, Sanchez, Borge and Gabrek all later got into the mix with additional shots on goal.

The Lions wrapped up the scoring with 4:11 remaining when Kurfirst was able to convert on a shot from close range.

Beglen got the shutout, thanks to the work of defenders like Billy McGuinness, Dan Wielgos, Jack Bowton, Kralovec-Kirchherr and Paice.

Now Labbato and his team can set their sights on the 33-team Pepsi Showdown which they host . It starts Tuesday with games also on Thursday and Saturday.

While pleased with some of the progress that they've made, LT's coach sees other areas where they need to get better in order to challenge in the event.

"We got through this and got what we wanted, which was a nice win and were able to play all of the players," Labbato said. "When we play teams who are top-caliber, we need to be able to lock down the defense and we've learned from our mistakes from the past.

"We feel good right now but we also have a ton of room for improvement. We felt that we could have had better touches and quicker play during these last two games. We're falling back on our expectations and that's something we have to pull together next week."

Man of the match: Kyle Kurfirst

By Curt Herron

When you look at the final stats from Friday's match between Lyons Township and Homewood-Flossmoor, Kyle Kurfirst appears near the bottom.

That's because the LT junior midfielder collected his team's final goal late in the second half of a 5-0 romp over the Vikings in LaGrange.

But Kurfirst's contributions to the Lions' fourth win in five matches were hardly a footnote as far as LT coach Paul Labbato was concerned.

"We got a quality effort from Kyle, who played the entire match for us in the center mid," Labbato said. "He doesn't lose any balls in the air and every touch of his is on target."

With Kurfirst making things happen out of the midfield, the Lions managed to have plenty of good scoring chances throughout against H-F.

The win followed a 2-1 victory at St. Charles East on Wednesday that has helped LT move on from last Saturday's 4-0 loss to Neuqua Valley.

Kurfirst likes what he's seen thus far from his squad as they prepare to participate in their own Pepsi Showdown during the next two weeks.

"Everyone obviously wanted to win this game, especially after they beat us like they did last year," Kurfirst said. "We went in feeling that we were expected to win so some times that makes it harder to get up for that.

"We all worked hard and got the result that we were looking for and pretty much everyone is playing well right now. It was a tough game against Neuqua but we rebounded well and got a good result against St. Charles East.

"The Neuqua loss showed us that we need to come out ready in every game from the start to the finish. I like that all of us are shooting high for this season. And the chemistry on this team is the best in my years here."

Lyons Township starters vs. Homewood-F.