By Michael Wojtychiw

NORTHFIELD – The Northside College Showcase is routinely one of the best in-season tournaments in the boys season. With half the teams ranked from no. 3 to no. 9 in the Chicagoland Soccer Top 25, the tournament offers a good early test for all eight teams as they search for their identities.

Two of the ranked squads, no. 6 Loyola and no. 9 New Trier met in a neighborhood rivalry match Tuesday in Northfield. Both teams were 1-0-0 in the tournament after the opening day of competition Saturday: the Trevians defeated Grayslake Central; the Ramblers defeated no. 7 Libertyville.

Junior midfielder/forward Evan Kanellos made sure that only New Trier remained undefeated in the pool after the Tuesday night game. 

Kanellos, the lone sophomore on the 2021’s spring season team, assisted on the Trevians’ first goal and scored the game-winner off of a free kick seven minutes into the second half en route to the praise of his mates and Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match honors.

“That (free kick) is something he’s been working on in training,” New Trier manager Matt Ravenscraft said. “Early on in the season, we want the ball on frame and force the goalie have to make a play. We actually haven’t been really dangerous off our set pieces in the first two games, so it’s something we’ve worked on and executed well tonight.”

“That (first goal) was huge for us,” Kanellos said. “It got the crowd going, gave us momentum.

“We gave up some momentum (after their goal) but knew we could get it back.”

The game got off to a fast start with Loyola (3-1-0) earning a corner kick in the game’s first minute. The Trevians (2-0-1), however, not only thwarted the attempt, they forced a counterattack that led to Kanellos’ assist to the head of junior forward Matthew Perchik, just 1 minute, 22 seconds into the match.

“We won a ball in their half and good things happen when you’ve got runners in the box,” Ravenscraft said. “It’s all about the service. It was a really good service, but Matthew still had a lot to do and you don’t beat a keeper of Loyola’s quality without a really good effort.

“As soon as he re-directed it, if that sneaks over the goalie and under the bar, it’s a goal.”

“When you concede a goal really, really early in the game, it can be deflating,” Loyola manager Justin Dunn said. “When they’ve got a crowd behind them, it’s really hard to come back. But I’m really proud of the guys for battling back.

“We gave up another early goal in the second half, it’s hard to battle back twice. It’s a mentality thing, and we’re working on it.”

The goal rattled the Ramblers a bit, before they were able to settle down and challenge the Trevians with consistency, not allowing the hosts to get any good looks at the goal.

New Trier did the same, until it gave Loyola another chance with a corner kick with just under 25 minutes remaining in the half. A service from midfielder Oliver Szorc led to a goal by junior defender Liam Drehkoff, tying the game with 24:43 until halftime.

The game then became a showcase between two of the state’s top goalies, New Trier’s Aidan Crawford and Loyola’s Alex Ainsworth, both Chicagoland Soccer all-staters.

Both keepers kept their opponents at bay the rest of the half and entered the break deadlocked at 1-1.

That s until early in the second half, when Kanellos stepped up to take a free kick with just under seven minutes elapsed in the second half. The junior stepped up and drilled a shot into the corner, giving the Trevians a 2-1 lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

“I was thinking top right, let’s hit a banger, we’ve got a crowd here,” Kanellos said. “And when I scored it, I didn’t even know what to do. Right side of the box, I always try to curl it around the wall into the top right corner.

“At first we were a bit nervous, but then we settled down, started playing our game, passing, connecting on passes and opened them up. We had a lot of space on the side and tried exposing that with our wing backs.”

“They kept moving us further and further back,” Dunn said. “That allowed them to come on our goal way too much. That free kick was a great shot. With wind, with pace, no goalie is saving that.”

With the graduation of scorers like Will Franzen, Jake Krueger, Collin Donnelly-Maine and Dante Mitchell from the 2021 spring squad, Ravenscraft has looked for Kanellos to step up in more of a scoring role, as well as distributing the ball.

“Evan is such a talent and being the only sophomore to play in the spring gave him a chance to grow and gain some chemistry, game some confidence,” Ravenscraft said.

The contest between two top 10 teams also helped show both Dunn and Ravenscraft where their teams stand a little over a week into the season.

Both teams graduated a lot of senior talent, so the early tests have been good for the managers to track progress and see where they still need to grow, even though they’ve only played three or four games so far.

“We’ve learned about perseverance,” said Dunn. “This is not an easy place to play. We haven’t had a home game yet. Coming into the tournament we knew we’d be playing high-caliber opponents and just wanted to show what we had.

“Our guys are games,” said Ravenscraft. “We have a lot of trust in our full squad. Tonight, we really showed the quality of our depth. Guys were able to come in and raise the level for that amount of time they were in.

“They were focused, they were locked in. That could sometimes be the hardest part, staying focused on the game, knowing what your role is going to be. We really needed everybody tonight.”

Loyola finishes pool play with Grayslake Central on Thursday in its home debut. The Trevians travel to Libertyville for their final pool-play match. The place games take place Saturday at New Trier’s Northfield campus.


Starting Lineups

Loyola
GK: Alex Ainsworth
D: Liam Drehkoff
D: Niko Douvalakis
D: Ryan Leider
D: John Phillips
M: Joey Vehovsky
M: Joseph Roscoe
M: Oliver Szorc
M: Oskar Duenkel
F: Frank Miedema
F: Guillermo Echevarria

New Trier
GK: Aidan Crawford
D: T.J. Carmody
D: James Paden
D: Colin Gottshall
M: Karsten Segall
M: Eli Drake
M: Evan Kanellos
M/F: Ronan O’Neill
F: Peter Kanellos
F: Aidan Nicholson
F: Matthew Perchik

Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match: Evan Kanellos, jr., MF, New Trier

Scoring summary

First half
New Trier – Matthew Perchik (Evan Kanellos), 2nd minute
Loyola – Liam Drehkoff (Oliver Szorc), 15th minute

Second half
New Trier – Evan Kanellos, 47th minute

Game story: https://www.chicagolandsoccer.org/gs-loyola-at-new-trier-8-31-21.html