Kits Bounce Back Behind Roman, Dump Highland Park

Senior Night is typically an occasion for high school athletic programs to celebrate those who have endured and excelled through the grind of practices and games for four years.

It’s also a time to appreciate the guy who isn’t the leading scorer or the one who usually grabs the headlines.

Evanston soccer coach Franz Calixte has an appreciation for each and every one of the 14 seniors on his roster this season. But he especially appreciates the contributions of an unsung hero like Ben Roman.

The senior defender scored his first 2 goals of the season Thursday night as the Wildkits played their last regular season home game at Lazier Field. The Kits drilled Highland Park 7-1 as Roman and Orlando Tobin each found the back of the net twice and helped Evanston reached the 15-victory plateau.

Now 15-2-2 overall, Evanston bounced back from a 4-1 loss to Oak Park-River Forest last Saturday in the final round of the Great River Classic tournament held in Bettendorf, Iowa. The unbeaten Huskies are the No. 1 seed in the Class 3A Evanston Sectional tourney and the two teams could meet again at Lazier in the sectional semifinals.

Evanston’s path to a rematch is no certainty, even though ETHS has earned the No. 3 seed. The Kits would likely have to win on the road in the regional finals at Maine South, a team they tied during the regular season. But the fact that 6 players missed the matchup in Iowa due to injuries --- including defensive standouts George Lewis and Lincoln Carbray --- tends to downplay the significance of the loss in Calixte’s mind and in the mind of his players, too.

“We didn’t play a good game and lose to them. We played a bad game, and we lost,” pointed out Roman. “We’re going to have to have a better performance against them if we play Oak Park again.”

“I’m not making any excuses,” added Calixte. “That game was more intel (intelligence) recon and I just hope we’re not gun-shy if we play them again, because we know those guys are good. This is the time of year when you want to start peaking, though, and it’s hard to do that when you’re missing one-third of your (playing) rotation. We just need to get healthy.”

The Wildkits didn’t have any trouble dispatching Highland Park in their second-to-last regular season game. They travel to Round Lake next Thursday, then open regional competition at Maine South on October 17th against the No. 14 sectional seed, Maine East.

Roman scored both his goals on free kicks, from approximately the same angles and distances at opposite ends of Lazier Field in the 6th and 64th minutes. He just missed a hat trick when he tried another restart from the 15-yard line and it drifted just above the crossbar.

The lefty kicker has been Evanston’s corner kick specialist for most of the season and did score a couple of goals last year.

“I’m just glad I was finally able to score on Senior Night,” Roman said. “We have a lot of scorers on this team and I’m just trying to fill in and do whatever else the team needs. I think this is a nice way for us to ease into the focus for the (state) playoffs.”

“Ben Roman’s not the fastest guy out there and he’s not the biggest. But he’s such a good player, and people who understand soccer know his real worth out there,” explained Calixte. “He gets some nice traps under pressure, and he’s just a joy for me to watch.”

Roman’s offensive outburst came on a night where Evanston was able to experiment and didn’t miss a beat without some starters still on the sidelines. Calixte used all three goalies --- Alex Mahoney, Milo Slevin and Cade Likhite --- and let Slevin start in a field position at striker for the first time in his varsity career, too.

Also scoring goals for the winners were Bryan Maldonado, Joseph Sargent, and Cristiano Hamer. Tobin tallied twice in the final minute of play. The only goal for Highland Park (3-10-1) came via penalty kick by Pedro Uchoa with 4:21 left in the contest.