Senior Dylan Taglang scored his first varsity hat trick, netting 3 goals in the first 11 minutes Thursday night as Evanston’s soccer team destroyed Chicago Mather 12-0 in the second round of the Evanston Invitational tournament at Lazier Field.
Nine different players scored goals for the winners in a game that lasted only one half --- 40 minutes --- by mutual consent.
“I almost feel like I want to apologize because as a coach I never try to run up the score,” said ETHS head coach Franz Calixte. “I’ve been on the other end of games like this and it’s not fun. I feel bad that it got to 12 goals tonight.
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“We did a lot of drills and practiced finishing on Wednesday, and we talked about creating opportunities and finishing those opportunities. Tonight they did like we asked them to.”
Calixte cleared his deep bench early and often as no starter played as many as 20 minutes. Evanston seized a 3-0 lead in the first 6 minutes on a pair of goals by Taglang and one by Matthew Webley.
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With the rout already on, Mather starting goalie Admir Pali was injured in a collision with an Evanston player and had to be removed. The Wildkits poured in 9 more goals against his replacement, Javier Adame.
Junior Chhabi Darjee scored 2 goals and 1 assist and freshman Martin Torres-Moreno contributed 1 goal and 1 assist for the Kits, now 3-0-1 overall and 2-0 in tournament play. Evanston can wrap up its’ eighth tournament title in a row with a win over Walter Payton Prep on Saturday.
Torres-Moreno scored his second goal of the season in the 30th minute, converting a head shot off a corner kick from Dominique Bahombwa. Torres-Moreno is the one of 8 forwards on the varsity roster even though Calixte wasn’t certain the freshman flash would fit in on a team dominated by upperclassmen.
“I first saw him in our summer league (camp), and originally I thought we’d have Martin up on the sophomore team. That’s how well he played, but in the summer all of the (varsity) guys aren’t always there,” Calixte pointed out.
“So I said let’s wait and see what happens when we have our tryouts when all the guys are there. But he looked just as good and the tryouts just reinforced what we already thought. The older guys have really embraced him, and they appreciate his game.”
