Boys Soccer: Lyons win streak hits six against Downers North

Updated: September 18, 2012 10:26PM

With a huge rivalry game with Hinsdale Central waiting on Saturday, it would have been easy for Lyons to overlook Downers Grove North Tuesday night.

But despite missing two starters, the Lions did no such thing, taking care of business by knocking off the host Trojans 2-1 in West Suburban Conference Silver Division action at Carstens Field in Downers Grove.

Reserve Cole Gilchrist tallied his first career goal in the first half and freshman Cristian Sanchez scored his sixth goal of the season on a spectacular shot in the second half for Lyons (9-2-1, 2-0), which extended its winning streak to six games.

“We played everybody tonight,” said Lyons coach Paul Labbato, whose team plays three conference games on the road this week before facing Morton in the Pepsi Showdown championship game Sunday at Toyota Park. “But we made a commitment with the long week that we have that everyone will play and we’ll limit some minutes here and there.

“To our credit, when we took some of the starters out we pressed a little bit more with the next group. They did a nice job and I’m pretty happy getting out of this place.”

One of those bench players was Gilchrist, a sophomore forward who worked a nice give-and-go with junior Pearce Clarke in the Downers North penalty area before sending a 15-foot shot off the hand of diving Trojans goalie Jim Barkei to give the visitors a 1-0 lead with 12:51 left in the first half. Clarke was starting in place of Frankie Kocimski [illness].

“Pearce had a nice ball into the middle,” Gilchrist said. “It is nice to score my first goal.

“Everybody is strong on this team. We have a good bench, so it’s not like there is a difference between the players that start the game and that come off the bench.”

Sanchez has made a substantial difference in his rookie campaign. His left-footed rocket from 22 yards out beat a leaping Barkei into the extreme upper right corner of the net at the 32:23 mark of the second half to extend the lead to 2-0.

“I saw the goalkeeper out of his goal,” Sanchez said. “He was out pretty far so I decided to kick it high and upper 90. It feels great. This is our first win in an away game on a turf field so it feels pretty nice to overcome our weaknesses.”

Sanchez’s strike proved to be important because the Trojans (6-6-1, 1-2) retaliated just 1:51 later when Josh Triechel scored off an assist from Reid Melton. But Downers North managed only one shot the rest of the way.

“It’s disappointing because I think that’s a team we can handle,” said Downers North coach Brian Gervase, who is 0-11 in his career against Lyons. “Our best half of soccer was the second half against Benet [in the season opener] and we’ve struggled up until now to play that type of soccer again, and I thought we played it today.

“Maybe they’ll be in our sectional again this year and we should know that we can compete with them and that they are a team that’s beatable.”

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