Boys soccer: Mikey Kroll’s first goal of the year lifts Oswego past Oswego East

AURORA – Mikey Kroll was constantly winning balls for Oswego during its semifinal game against Oswego East on Tuesday in the Class 3A West Aurora regional like he’s done so well throughout the season.

What he hadn’t done was score a goal, but that all changed with 14:57 remaining in a scoreless battle, as he headed in a corner kick from fellow senior Killyan Avila to lift the Panthers to a 1-0 victory.

Oswego (16-6-3) rolls into Saturday morning’s regional title game against West Aurora (19-3). The Blackhawks beat the Panthers, 3-0, on Sept. 28, but this Panthers team has now blanked four straight teams and has 12 shutouts on the year.

“The kid (Kroll) had a good game. He won every single head ball in the second half and really helped them control the game,” Wolves coach Steve Szymanski said. “So credit to him. It was telling that he won the head ball to win the game because he won every head ball there in the back.”

Back pain has limited Avila’s minutes this season, but he wasn’t going to let it stop him from contributing with the season on the line. Avila said he played less than 10 minutes when the Panthers lost 2-0 to the Wolves on Sept. 26. He managed about 50 minutes this time with his left foot coming through in a big way.

“This was the kind of game where I didn’t care about my back, I was going to go out and do my thing,” he said. “There was a while there where I couldn’t run or walk. Tonight, I was going to ignore it and help my team.”

At practice on Monday, the Panthers had Avila taking corner kicks to work on utilizing his dominant left foot. Practicing such set plays most definitely helped the Panthers advance.

“It all comes with the left foot,” he said. “I originally never took corner kicks until yesterday in practice.”

Earlier in the game the Panthers narrowly scored in similar fashion but Oswego East goalkeeper Javier Ruiz, the program’s all-time leader in shutouts, denied them.

“Killyan (Avila) put it on my head in the first half, but the goalie got to that one,” Kroll said. “Killyan did the same thing this time except the goalie didn’t come out on that one so I knew it was coming.”

Oswego (10-7-4) started strong, but struggled to create many offensive threats.

“I thought the first half we played really really well,” Szymanski said. “Sometimes with our guys, you don’t know who is going to come out ready to go. In the first half I thought we had the better of the play and they had it in the second half. We just couldn’t connect passes.”

Oswego coach Gaspar Arias couldn’t believe that Kroll called his shot, but was ecstatic to see it happen.

Arias explained that Kroll told him before the game that not only was he going to play hard and give his best, but that he was also going to score.

“If you do, man, it’s going to be great,” Arias told him. “And he’s like ‘Yeah, I will.” And he got it. That was really nice to see. He’s an awesome player.”