Boys soccer: Crystal Lake South adjusts quick, routs Woodstock North in season-opener

WOODSTOCK – It took Crystal Lake South some time to get going against Woodstock North in Monday’s season-opener, but once the Gators got going, they got going.

Crystal Lake South scored five second-half goals to run away with a 6-0 win, a win players hope will translate to success as it starts the season.

“It’s huge to start the season off like that,” junior Nolan Getzinger said. “It really goes to the next games, gives us confidence for some bigger games in the future, like conference games. That’s a huge first win.”

South’s (1-0-0) failure to score often in the first half wasn’t from a lack of trying. Getzinger had the Gators’ first scoring chance of the season less than two minutes into the match but his shot went wide.

The junior misfired on his next shot a couple minutes later but buried his third attempt, scoring on a ball that came right to him to give South a 1-0 lead with 24:13 left in the first half.

The Gators had six of their nine corner kicks in the first half along with four of their seven free kicks, but players showed that it was the first match of the season and failed to connect on opportunities.

“It’s the first game,” South coach Brian Allen said. “You never know if it’s going to be quick, you never know if it’s going to be long, so we were just trying to contain good spells for long periods of time. I thought we built ourselves into the game and started to do that.”

South quickly got it together in the second half when Nick Prus scored off a scramble in front of the net with 38:16 left in the match. Getzinger added his second goal off a penalty kick with 35:27 left to take away any momentum Woodstock North hoped to build.

Branden Lewis, Mason Ross, Ali Ahmed all scored in the second half to cap the scoring for the Gators.

“When we could take our chances, realizing when to do that on a more consistent basis was the main difference in the second half,” Allen said.

Woodstock North (0-1-0) coach John Sullivan thought his team came out flat to start the second half. He was proud of the work the Thunder put into to limit the Gators to one goal in the first half but thought South’s midfielders made his players make mistakes, leading to scoring opportunities and taking away a third of the field.

“It shows us where we need to be,” Sullivan said. “It shows us the level of competition we need to come up against, not only in the season, but as we get into the postseason. That’s a multi-time state champion we just played against a team that most haven’t played a varsity soccer game before. We have a lot to learn.”

The Thunder will get a chance to learn quickly when they travel to play an early Kishwaukee River Conference match at Harvard on Wednesday before playing at Jacobs on Saturday.

South will host Hersey on Thursday as Allen and his coaching staff use the nonconference season to learn more about the Gators by watching them compete against different styles of play.

“It comes down to us, what are we going to do in these different situations,” Allen said. “We’ll probably try something different against Hersey maybe formation-wise to see when we’re at our best. In different scenarios, different games, we can become two, three-dimensional instead of one-dimensional in what we do.”