Soccer Kits Survive And Advance With 2-0 Win

Evanston’s soccer team almost fell into a time-worn trap Tuesday night in Park Ridge.

But matched up against a team they whipped 10-1 about a month ago, the Wildkits did find a way to win.

Tuesday’s 2-0 triumph over Maine East in the Class 3A regional tournament opener at Maine South kept Evanston’s season alive and sent the Kits into the title game Saturday at 11 a.m. against the host team. Maine South, which tied ETHS with a late goal during the regular season, defeated Loyola Academy 2-1 in the other regional semifinal.

ETHS head coach Franz Calixte admitted his squad almost got caught looking past a foe, a dangerous approach in the one (loss)-and-done scenario that is the Illinois High School Association state tournament.

But survive and advance is a postseason motto that also rings true.

“Obviously, that’s not the same Maine East team we beat 10-1,” said Calixte after his No. 3 seeded team improved to 16-2-3 on the season. “They’ve been depleted by injuries all season but tonight they had all of those guys back. I wish I had known that ahead of time.

“They were tough tonight. And after beating them 10-1, our guys couldn’t help but look past them. It’s just like we were depleted when we lost to (No. 1 sectional seed) Oak Park. Maybe they’ll look past US.”

Joseph Sargeant scored off the bench with just 2 minutes, 4 seconds left in the first half to break the scoreless deadlock and Johnny Hunwick headed home a pass from Cristiano Hamer in the 47th minute for the winners.

Sargeant scored his 10th goal of the season just when it looked like the Blue Demons (9-11) would get a morale boost by holding the Wildkits scoreless for an entire half.

Instead, Sargeant took a pinpoint pass from Ben Roman and burst through the East defense before beating keeper Kai Lorenc.

Sargeant is now tied with Hunwick and Bryan Maldonado for second on the team scoring list with 10 goals apiece, behind Hamer’s team-high 15. The junior dynamo has only started a handful of games, however, while delivering the kind of depth that most high school teams only dream of.

“We needed Joseph’s energy tonight, and he needed that goal,” said Calixte. “He needed to take a step back and do what he does well, and not overthink things. He gave us some good energy tonight.

“It was good to get those first game (state playoffs) jitters out, but it wasn’t a good performance. We had a couple of guys who didn’t look good out there. It took us awhile to get going.”

The ETHS coaching staff decided to back off on pressuring foes in the midfield now that postseason play has begun, with potential foes like Oak Park and New Trier showing more strength in that area of the field than even one of the strongest Evanston teams in recent memory.

“The teams we’re going to play next have very, very good midfielders,” Calixte said. “One of our weaknesses this year has been playing too open in the midfield and tonight we found out we needed to pressure Maine East, instead of staying back and waiting to counterattack. We know there are some center mids who are going to give us problems going forward.

“Sometimes, you’ve gotta win ugly.”