Lockport shows grit but falls to Joliet West
Conference hopes dashed, Porters aim
to keep postive vibe for postseason
By Steve Millar
LOCKPORT -- Needing a win to keep its chances alive for a third-straight SouthWest Suburban Conference Blue Division title alive, Lockport successfully fought back to erase a 2-0 deficit Saturday morning against Joliet West.
Unfortunately for the Porters, it went for naught due to two late goals from the Tigers.
Joliet West knocked the Porters off the throne and clinched at least a share of its first conference title with a 4-2 win over its host.
“This game almost mirrored how the season has gone,” Lockport coach Chris Beal said. “It’s all up and down. We get momentum, they get momentum. Today, we just really struggled to possess the ball. Everyone is looking for consistency, and we just haven’t been able to find it yet this season.”
The Porters (8-7-3, 2-3-0), who scored twice in the final six minutes of the first half to pull even at 2-2, paid dearly for a mistake in the back with just under 12 minutes to go in the match.
Pressured by the forwards of Joliet West (12-7-1, 4-2-0), a Lockport defender played the ball to goalkeeper Jakub Krawczyk, who then tried to send a pass ahead. Joliet West’s Elber Haro, though, was there to pick it off.
Haro sent a high, looping shot that Krawczyk made no play on, thinking it was sailing over the net. However, it ducked down at the last second and tucked under the crossbar for the go-ahead goal with 11:13 to go.
“That goal was just mistakes from us,” Beal said. “Not thinking. Instead of playing the ball up the line, we try to pass it back and the keeper plays a bad ball out, and they pounce on it.
“When everyone in the conference is inconsistent and everyone is up and down, these games are going to come down to fine margins. Individual mistakes are going to cost you games. That happened to us in this one.”
Haro, a senior captain for the Tigers, wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to be a hero.
“I saw the play coming,” he said. “He played it back to the keeper, and I knew he was a right-footed keeper so I expected it there and I got there fortunately.
“I just ripped the shot and waited to see where it landed. Thankfully, it landed in the goal. I didn’t expect it to go in. I thought it would go high, until I saw the goalie’s face and I was like ‘Alright, I’ll take it.’”
Haro, Chicagoland Soccer’s Man of the Match, had an assist in the first half and he added his second goal in less than six minutes to give the Tigers some insurance, pulling the trigger from 35 yards out and blasting a shot to the top right corner of the net for a 4-2 lead.
With that, the celebration was underway for the Tigers. Joliet West will share the conference crown with at least one other team. The winner of Tuesday’s match between Sandburg and Stagg will claim a share. Bolingbrook will also if it defeats Joliet Central in its final conference contest.
That won’t make it any less sweet for the Tigers, who in the six seasons since Joliet Township split into two programs had never finished over .500 in conference.
“It’s the first time we’ve beat Lockport here and the first time winning conference so it feels good,” Haro said. “This was our goal and dream since freshman year. We let that 2-0 lead slip away, but we just kept fighting. We knew what we wanted and we got that ‘W.'”
Joliet West jumped in front when Michael Vallejo scored off an Ivan Armenta pass in the seventh minute and made it 2-0 in the 23rd minute as Tim Spesia found the net off Haro’s cross on a corner kick.
The Porters, too, were successful on corners and got back into the game as a result.
Jose Magallanes made a run to the far post and headed home David Villa’s perfectly-placed corner to cut the deficit to 2-1 with 5:52 left in the half.
Then, on Lockport’s sixth corner kick of the half, Villa struck again.
His corner was broken up initially, but Kezie Nwachukwu tracked it down at the top of the box and slipped a pass back to Villa, who cut inside and bent a shot in from the right side of the box inside the far post.
“I took one touch, and I heard my coach yell ‘He’s out’ and I looked up and saw the keeper off his line and shot it back post,” Villa said.
Villa hopes the Porters can continue the success on corner kicks going forward.
“We can be dangerous on those,” he said. “We’ve got some big guys: Kezie, Brian (Moore), Tommy (Calderaro). They can get up for those, and they’re bigger than most opponents.”
Lockport seemed to take momentum into halftime, but found itself on its heels again when the second half started.
“It was a frustrating first half,” Beal said. “We never got things going. We never got in any rhythm. We never got possession, and we didn’t get anything going except on set pieces, but we scored on those set pieces and got back into the game.
“We were hoping to build off that momentum in the second half. We went three up front, decided to press them hard, but it didn’t work. When they got their chances, they took them. When we got chances, we didn’t.”
Calderaro got behind the defense and was able to dribble around charging Joliet West goalkeeper Carlos Urbano just three minutes into the second half, but fired just wide.
The Porters’ other good chance of the second half came after Haro’s first goal, when Villa got free down the left side of the field, but fired just over the crossbar.
Just over a minute later, Haro got his insurance goal.
“Tommy’s done a great job for us, and he’s been scoring goals,” Beal said. “So it was just one of those days. He goes around the keeper and another day that goes in, but today it didn’t. Villa had a chance, and I thought that was going to go in, but then they come right back and put the ball in the net.”
The Porters close out conference play Tuesday at Homewood-Flossmoor and finish the regular season Friday against Andrew.
Then it’s on to postseason play in what seems to be a wide open Class 3A Sandburg Sectional.
So Beal’s message for his team was simple: despite falling short of the conference title, there’s still plenty to play for.
“I’ve been trying to tell the boys, ‘Whatever’s gone is gone,’” he said. “There’s no lingering into the postseason. You start fresh. Everyone’s got a chance to beat each other. You’ve got to be mentally ready. A lot of time these games come down to mental toughness.”
Starting lineups
Lockport
GK: Jakub Krawczyk
D: Brian Moore
D: Ernesto Espinosa
D: Kezie Nwachukwu
D: Thomas Inczauskis
M: Jack Dilger
M: Jose Magallanes
M: Nick Kowalczyk
M: Eric Keta
F: David Villa
F: Tommy Calderaro
Joliet West
GK: Carlos Urbano
D: Jayson Graves
D: Ivan Lopez
D: Leonardo Haro
M: Felipe Ortiz
M: Ulie Tellez
M: Elber Haro
M: Tim Spesia
M: Alex Meyers
F: Ivan Armenta
F: Michael Vallejo
Man of the Match: Elber Haro, MF , Joliet West
Conference hopes dashed, Porters aim
to keep postive vibe for postseason
By Steve Millar
LOCKPORT -- Needing a win to keep its chances alive for a third-straight SouthWest Suburban Conference Blue Division title alive, Lockport successfully fought back to erase a 2-0 deficit Saturday morning against Joliet West.
Unfortunately for the Porters, it went for naught due to two late goals from the Tigers.
Joliet West knocked the Porters off the throne and clinched at least a share of its first conference title with a 4-2 win over its host.
“This game almost mirrored how the season has gone,” Lockport coach Chris Beal said. “It’s all up and down. We get momentum, they get momentum. Today, we just really struggled to possess the ball. Everyone is looking for consistency, and we just haven’t been able to find it yet this season.”
The Porters (8-7-3, 2-3-0), who scored twice in the final six minutes of the first half to pull even at 2-2, paid dearly for a mistake in the back with just under 12 minutes to go in the match.
Pressured by the forwards of Joliet West (12-7-1, 4-2-0), a Lockport defender played the ball to goalkeeper Jakub Krawczyk, who then tried to send a pass ahead. Joliet West’s Elber Haro, though, was there to pick it off.
Haro sent a high, looping shot that Krawczyk made no play on, thinking it was sailing over the net. However, it ducked down at the last second and tucked under the crossbar for the go-ahead goal with 11:13 to go.
“That goal was just mistakes from us,” Beal said. “Not thinking. Instead of playing the ball up the line, we try to pass it back and the keeper plays a bad ball out, and they pounce on it.
“When everyone in the conference is inconsistent and everyone is up and down, these games are going to come down to fine margins. Individual mistakes are going to cost you games. That happened to us in this one.”
Haro, a senior captain for the Tigers, wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to be a hero.
“I saw the play coming,” he said. “He played it back to the keeper, and I knew he was a right-footed keeper so I expected it there and I got there fortunately.
“I just ripped the shot and waited to see where it landed. Thankfully, it landed in the goal. I didn’t expect it to go in. I thought it would go high, until I saw the goalie’s face and I was like ‘Alright, I’ll take it.’”
Haro, Chicagoland Soccer’s Man of the Match, had an assist in the first half and he added his second goal in less than six minutes to give the Tigers some insurance, pulling the trigger from 35 yards out and blasting a shot to the top right corner of the net for a 4-2 lead.
With that, the celebration was underway for the Tigers. Joliet West will share the conference crown with at least one other team. The winner of Tuesday’s match between Sandburg and Stagg will claim a share. Bolingbrook will also if it defeats Joliet Central in its final conference contest.
That won’t make it any less sweet for the Tigers, who in the six seasons since Joliet Township split into two programs had never finished over .500 in conference.
“It’s the first time we’ve beat Lockport here and the first time winning conference so it feels good,” Haro said. “This was our goal and dream since freshman year. We let that 2-0 lead slip away, but we just kept fighting. We knew what we wanted and we got that ‘W.'”
Joliet West jumped in front when Michael Vallejo scored off an Ivan Armenta pass in the seventh minute and made it 2-0 in the 23rd minute as Tim Spesia found the net off Haro’s cross on a corner kick.
The Porters, too, were successful on corners and got back into the game as a result.
Jose Magallanes made a run to the far post and headed home David Villa’s perfectly-placed corner to cut the deficit to 2-1 with 5:52 left in the half.
Then, on Lockport’s sixth corner kick of the half, Villa struck again.
His corner was broken up initially, but Kezie Nwachukwu tracked it down at the top of the box and slipped a pass back to Villa, who cut inside and bent a shot in from the right side of the box inside the far post.
“I took one touch, and I heard my coach yell ‘He’s out’ and I looked up and saw the keeper off his line and shot it back post,” Villa said.
Villa hopes the Porters can continue the success on corner kicks going forward.
“We can be dangerous on those,” he said. “We’ve got some big guys: Kezie, Brian (Moore), Tommy (Calderaro). They can get up for those, and they’re bigger than most opponents.”
Lockport seemed to take momentum into halftime, but found itself on its heels again when the second half started.
“It was a frustrating first half,” Beal said. “We never got things going. We never got in any rhythm. We never got possession, and we didn’t get anything going except on set pieces, but we scored on those set pieces and got back into the game.
“We were hoping to build off that momentum in the second half. We went three up front, decided to press them hard, but it didn’t work. When they got their chances, they took them. When we got chances, we didn’t.”
Calderaro got behind the defense and was able to dribble around charging Joliet West goalkeeper Carlos Urbano just three minutes into the second half, but fired just wide.
The Porters’ other good chance of the second half came after Haro’s first goal, when Villa got free down the left side of the field, but fired just over the crossbar.
Just over a minute later, Haro got his insurance goal.
“Tommy’s done a great job for us, and he’s been scoring goals,” Beal said. “So it was just one of those days. He goes around the keeper and another day that goes in, but today it didn’t. Villa had a chance, and I thought that was going to go in, but then they come right back and put the ball in the net.”
The Porters close out conference play Tuesday at Homewood-Flossmoor and finish the regular season Friday against Andrew.
Then it’s on to postseason play in what seems to be a wide open Class 3A Sandburg Sectional.
So Beal’s message for his team was simple: despite falling short of the conference title, there’s still plenty to play for.
“I’ve been trying to tell the boys, ‘Whatever’s gone is gone,’” he said. “There’s no lingering into the postseason. You start fresh. Everyone’s got a chance to beat each other. You’ve got to be mentally ready. A lot of time these games come down to mental toughness.”
Starting lineups
Lockport
GK: Jakub Krawczyk
D: Brian Moore
D: Ernesto Espinosa
D: Kezie Nwachukwu
D: Thomas Inczauskis
M: Jack Dilger
M: Jose Magallanes
M: Nick Kowalczyk
M: Eric Keta
F: David Villa
F: Tommy Calderaro
Joliet West
GK: Carlos Urbano
D: Jayson Graves
D: Ivan Lopez
D: Leonardo Haro
M: Felipe Ortiz
M: Ulie Tellez
M: Elber Haro
M: Tim Spesia
M: Alex Meyers
F: Ivan Armenta
F: Michael Vallejo
Man of the Match: Elber Haro, MF , Joliet West