Eagles can't finish vs. visiting OPRF
By Dave Miller

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With Oak Park and River Forest and Leyden each starting the season with a 1-0 victory, offense figured to be at a premium when they took the field again Thursday afternoon against each other.

As the teams battled and the seconds ticked off the clock in the second half of a scoreless match, it looked like only one goal would be needed to produce a winner again.

That goal never came.

After a number of near-misses, the teams were forced to settle for a 0-0 tie in the second round of the Leyden Challenge Cup in Northlake. Neither was happy about it.

“We just couldn’t click on anything today,” Leyden coach Mark Valintis said. “A lot of that has to do with the team we’re playing, but a lot of that has to do with the fact we’re a young team. We had a big win against Larkin and we come out here and maybe think we’re better than we are. We played a team with a little bit of a different style in Oak Park and we just couldn’t put anything together.”

“We didn’t read that game,” Eagles junior forward Christian Hernandez said. “That was the most important thing.”

OPRF coach Paul Wright saw his Huskies wear down after putting together a solid 20 minutes in the middle of the first half.

“We were pretty exhausted,” he said.

Wright pinned part of the blame on it being the first day of school for his players.

“Leyden’s been at school for two weeks and today’s our first day,” Wright said. “So these kids going through all their classes, having to eat a school lunch, getting on a bus, coming here and plus it’s in the high 80s and humid, that puts a lot of pressure on your mindset.”

OPRF produced three shots on goal to Leyden’s two in the first half. The Eagles rebounded in the second half to earn the better of the play. They finished with seven shots on goal to the Huskies’ four.

Shots on goal didn’t tell the whole story. An unusual amount of shots sailed just over the crossbar.

“I think we just got unlucky with putting away chances,” OPRF co-captain Okker Verhagen said. “We had ’em, but we just couldn’t put them away.”

On the other side, Valintis wasn’t impressed with the quality of his team’s shots.

“We had chances in the second half, but I’d be willing to say we had only one or two that were legitimate chances,” Valintis said. “You can possess the ball all you want. The name of the game is to score. We didn’t play very well today. Credit Oak Park with always being a thorn in our side year after year.”

The bright spot for both clubs was the goalkeeping.

OPRF senior Andrew Galo earned the shutout with help from the Huskies defense led by sophomore defender Mavin Gill, who broke up a handful of scoring opportunities for the home team. Perhaps Galo’s best save came early in the second half when he dove to deflect a laser by senior Juan Recendez from 25 yards, directing the shot just over the crossbar.

“He did a good job,” Verhagen said of Galo. “He kept a clean sheet so that’s all we’re looking for him to do.”

For the second consecutive game, Leyden posted a shutout using senior Oscar Puga in net in the first half and sophomore Konrad Dziedzic in the second half. It’s been hard to argue with the tandem’s combined success so far.

“I thought both of them played great, for both games,” Valintis said. “They’re making big saves when they need to, especially Konrad in the second half coming out off his line quite a bit, you know, cutting down long balls, catching crosses.

“I don’t know if I’m going to do that all year long, but both of them are playing so well right now. I want to keep them both sharp and they’re both earning the playing time. I wish I could let them play the whole game. Eventually, as time goes on, I don’t know if we’ll keep flip-flopping, but they’re playing very well. That’s been the one good thing, two shutouts in two games.”

Leyden had the final chance to score, but Hernandez’s shot in the closing seconds sailed wide, sending both teams home frustrated. 

“Especially us since we played at our home and they played better than us in the first half,” Hernandez said.