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Schools

OPRF Suffers Rare Home Loss

Huskies settle for third place in WSC Silver after losing to Lyons Township 1-0.

The boys soccer team hadn’t lost at home in two years.

Until Tuesday.

Kevin Shaw’s header in the 47th minute lifted Lyons Township to a 1-0 victory over the Huskies in a match for a share of the West Suburban Silver Conference Silver Division title in Oak Park.

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OPRF (16-3-1, 4-2), which was seeking its first Silver title since 2007, settled for third place.

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“Hey, we had chances,” Huskies coach Paul Wright said. “They had chances. They put one in. Maybe we’ll see these guys later on. I’d love to see them again (in the Class 3A Hinsdale Central sectional final). I feel pretty comfortable. It’s not like I felt like we were outplayed or outmanned.”

LT (11-4-3, 5-1) shares the Silver title with Glenbard West. It’s the third straight conference championship for the Lions.

“I’ve been around LT soccer as an assistant or a head coach for about 11 years, and we never do well here,” Lions coach Paul Labbato said. “Our game is just not the same here, and a lot of that has to do with how hard Oak Park is (to play). They’re tough and tough to the ball. They’re fighters, in a good way. We’ve always come here and had a struggle so we don’t like coming here.”

But they won on their fourth consecutive shutout and Shaw’s first varsity goal. The score was trigged by a throw-in from the left side by Matt Thomas. The ball flicked off Elliot Borge’s head in front of the goal and continued to the right to Shaw, who headed the ball into the net.

All Shaw could think about in the split-second that the play developed was to not screw up his chance.

“I saw an open goal,” he said. “Going through my head was just, ‘Get this in. Don’t miss the open goal. Don’t be that kid. Make sure you put the ball in the net.’ Yeah, I was a little bit scared.”

To be technical, it was Shaw’s second goal. He was responsible for an accidental goal against his team in a 5-1 loss to Marquette University High School from Milwaukee on Sept. 24.

“In my head it’s like I’m back at zero now,” he said.

The first half was tightly played. Each team had a trio of quality chances, but goalkeepers Max Hadley of LT and Granger Sheppard of OPRF kept the match scoreless. The Lions momentarily thought they scored a horn-beating goal to end the half, but Jack Thomas was called for a handball.

Once Shaw gave LT a 1-0 lead, OPRF attacked with an increased urgency. The Huskies kept the pressure on the Lions. Stephen Golz alone had six scoring chances on headers, but one hit the right post, one sailed high and Hadley stopped four.

“We didn’t do anything different,” Labbato said about defending 6-foot-3 Golz, who’s OPRF’s leading scorer. “We definitely just played our normal backs, but we did put our taller guys on him on free kicks and throw-ins. We tried to make sure he was taken care of in some ways, but he’s hard to take care of. He’s so big and strong he’s going to get his chances.”

OPRF’s second leading scorer, Ryan Huettel received a couple good opportunities in the second half, too. He had two free kicks from just inside 30 yards, but Hadley stopped both, the first to the left side and the second, with five seconds remaining, to the right.

“I knew he was going to have to hurry up and get that one off so we just wanted to get in front of that so he couldn’t take a quick one and sneak it in,” Hadley said. “We got the wall set up and after that we were good to go.”

Wright credited the Lions for winning the battle in the middle of the field.

“They won 50-50 balls,” he said. “We didn’t win nearly as many balls in the midfield as we’ve won in the past, and I don’t know why that was. A lot of our pockets got picked in the middle. I think that threw us off.

“The first half we didn’t get balls over the top. We had trouble moving things around and doing some things. The second half was a much better half, but we didn’t come to play today the way we normally play.”

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