Boys Soccer: Back home in Oswego, Israel Torres helps lead Oswego East to first crosstown win since 2016

Oswego East's Israel Torres (left) celebrates with Austin Ward (7) after scoring a goal against Oswego during a soccer match at Oswego East High School on Monday, Sep 26, 2022.

OSWEGO – Israel Torres isn’t new to the area, but he is new to Oswego crosstown soccer.

Torres, an Oswego East senior, is from here. But before this year he played club soccer at Barca Residency Academy in Casa Grande, Arizona.

So the cool, breezy conditions Monday? Yes, they were a little new to Torres.

“It’s a big difference, really cold here,” Torres said. “To me, this is like really cold.”

Torres looked right at home, though. He knocked in his fourth goal of the season in the 31st minute for the first goal of the game. Oswego East went on to beat visiting Oswego 3-0, the Wolves’ first win over their crosstown rival since 2016.

“None of these guys have experienced this before,” Oswego East coach Steve Szymanski said. “It’s been a while.”

Szymanski has a young group experiencing a lot of new things this season. Oswego East (7-4-2) returned just four players from last season, the best in program history, with nine sophomores on this team. So it’s beneficial to have the experience of Torres, a 16-year-old senior who skipped eighth grade.

Szymanski admitted that he had no idea who Torres was before tryouts. He’s sure glad to have him aboard now.

Oswego’s Benjamin Sobecki (16) passes the ball between Oswego East's Dupablo Parodis-Yu (9) and Israel Torres (10) during a soccer match at Oswego East High School on Monday, Sep 26, 2022.

“I saw him on the roster, didn’t know who he was, first day of tryouts I thought he’s pretty good,” Szymanski said. “He’s kind of an unknown but he’s fit in well, especially being a little older because we are so young.”

Torres, slight in stature, came up with a big goal Monday. He gathered the ball on the right side of the goal, shook off a defender and drove his shot inside the right post with 9:02 left in the half.

“It came out wide, then they brought it in,” Torres said. “I dribbled it, saw a kid coming, so I faked it and shot it with my left.”

It was the only goal in a first half where Oswego (5-7-5) controlled much of the action. Oswego midfielder Salvador Martinez had a header in the box go over the goal in the 10th minute, and moments later was called for offsides on a dangerous cross into the box.

Late in the second half Oswego’s Killyan Avila had a free kick caught by the Oswego East goalkeeper to preserve the shutout.

“We just don’t have a player that can score goals for us on top. We don’t have a striker. We’ve moved midfielders to striker, defenders to striker, we’ve moved a lot of players, we just haven’t found that player yet,” Oswego coach Gaspar Arias said. “I feel like we dominated that game. We missed a lot of chances. I believed we played well, they just took advantage of opportunities and we didn’t.”

Oswego East's Drew Karg (4) shoots the ball for a goal against Oswego during a soccer match at Oswego East High School on Monday, Sep 26, 2022.

In the second half, Oswego East senior defender Drew Karg made it 2-0, dribbling the ball inside the box and drilling in a shot.

“They gave me a lot of time with the ball, I cut back and then I just pounded it as hard as I could at the frame,” Karg said. “Luckily, it went in the back of the net.”

The third goal came with 5:43 left, Oswego East’s DuPablo Parodis-Yu making a beautiful cross to Josh Lopez, who headed in the score.

Oswego East's Dupablo Parodis-Yu (9) plays the ball on a header against Oswego’s Killyan Avila (10) during a soccer match at Oswego East High School on Monday, Sep 26, 2022.

“DuPablo is someone I can always trust to get the ball,” Lopez said. “Whenever I see him have that breakaway I try to get up there as fast as I can to time my run and hopefully finish. It was a beautiful ball, and I was able to finish.”

Despite it being Oswego East’s first win over its crosstown rival in six years, Karg did not make too much out of it. The Wolves were coming off another huge win, 2-1 over Plainfield North last week. Another big one is coming up Thursday against conference leader Romeoville.

“I come out every game motivated to bring high energy and effort,” Karg said. “Every conference game is the same for me and you have to have the same amount of energy. Plainfield North, Oswego, whoever. I know about the same amount of people on those teams. Those are our biggest rivals.”