Kaneland boys soccer bounces back with win over La Salle-Peru

LA SALLE – After suffering a loss to last-place Morris that cost it a shot at a share of the Interstate 8 Conference title, the Kaneland boys soccer team was looking to bounce back Monday.

The Knights did with an 8-1 victory over La Salle-Peru at the L-P Sports Complex in La Salle to finish second in the conference with an 8-2 Interstate 8 record.

“We needed to bounce back from that debacle that happened a couple days go,” Kaneland coach Scott Parillo said. “This was much needed. I think it gave us a little bit more confidence heading into the postseason. We have another tough game against DeKalb on Thursday, and then the postseason starts.

“We needed to get rid of that last game, and now we just look forward to hopefully a little run in the playoffs, and we’ll see what happens.”

The Knights matched their season-high of eight goals Monday after being shut out the last two games.

“I thought our passing was good,” Parillo said. “We were knocking the ball around fairly well. We were splitting their defense, we had many opportunities to score, and we got eight in today.”

The game was scoreless in the first 15 minutes before the Knights got on the board when Noah McKittrick scored from the right side with 24:19 left in the first half. Five minutes later, Matthew Mitchinson scored the first goal of his hat trick to put the Knights up 2-0.

“I think we started passing better, got our touches a little bit better, were able to slot the ball through past their defenders a little bit better and got them on their heels, which is what you want to do,” Parillo said. “I thought it was a nice effort. It probably could have been seven or eight in the first half. We missed some wide-open goals, but that’s pretty much been us for the year.”

The Cavaliers responded quickly to the second goal. Jason Curran found the upper half of the net from 25-30 yards out to cut their deficit in half with 18:31 left in the first half.

“We utilized the space,” L-P coach David Spudic said. “Our defenders were able to get up the field a little bit. Jason stepped into that space and capitalized on it.”

The Knights added two more goals in the first half. Cameron Guernon scored with 12:35 left, and Jovani Ruiz put one in with 1:10 remaining in the opening half.

Mitchinson scored two more goals in the first 10 minutes of the second half. He scored on a penalty kick with 34:14 left in the game and scored from just outside the box with 31:18 remaining. Abe Paulino scored with 24:28 left, and the time was cut in half when Jair Ruiz scored with 12:12 left.

The Knights (14-6-1) – a No. 3 seed in their sub-sectional – play DeKalb at home Thursday before opening the Class 2A Freeport Regional against No. 7 Freeport at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 22.

“We needed a win, and we got the win,” Parillo said. “Now we’ll see what happens. Hopefully it’s more than just two more games. We’re hopefully trending upwards.”

The Cavaliers finish the regular season 7-10-2 overall and 2-8 in conference. L-P is a No. 6 seed and opens the Class 2A Ottawa Regional against No. 3 Galesburg at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 22.

“Everybody’s almost back to full health,” Spudic said. “We have eight days off until we have our next game, so by that time everybody should be healthy and good to go. There’s a lot of days or practice between now and then.

“We’ll just keep fine tuning things – the passing, the shooting, just get things a little more dialed in heading into the postseason.”