Providence opens the boys soccer season with a 4-0 victory over Joliet Catholic

After their match against Joliet Catholic, Providence Catholic boys soccer coach Mike Taylor expressed frustration with his team’s mistakes on the day. He said he needs to see a lot of growth from the group over the next week.

If Monday was a reflection of Providence at a low point, buckle in for the kind of team they’ll be at their best.

While certainly not perfect, the end result of Monday’s match for Providence was still a 4-0 victory in which they rarely allowed the Hilltoppers on their side of the pitch. The expectations that Taylor has set for this squad, though, are higher than what he witnessed Monday.

“There were a lot of mistakes,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s always nice to get the win, especially the first game of the season. There were a lot of positives, too, but there was a lot to clean up.”

Taylor attributed some of the issues to the sheer number of players shuffling in and out of the lineup. 22 players saw the field for Providence as Taylor tries to determine which 16 he feels the most comfortable using most of the time.

The good news for the Celtics is they’ll have plenty of time to sort through that lineup. They play five games this week, with Taylor saying he hopes to have his lineup sorted within a week.

Taylor said he is taking a glass-half-full approach to Monday’s issues.

“Today showed me what we need to work on,” he added. “That’s a good thing because if you go through the first game and there’s nothing to work on then you’re in trouble because you’re at your limit.”

The Celtics constantly applied pressure in the first half against JCA, but were unable to finish until Jovanny Gonzalez finally scored from the corner in the 33rd minute. Gonzalez added another goal to make it a brace for himself with 2.8 seconds left in the half, moving the score to 2-0.

The Celtics kept the pressure on the Hilltoppers in the second half until Christian Hofferica scored off an assist from Aldo Dominguez in the 28th minute. Just three minutes later, it was Dominguez doing the scoring off an assist from John Kobylarczyk to give the game its final score.

“I like how we were doing what we’ve been doing in practice,” Gonzalez said. “We have to put up more effort and be more organized, but throughout the season we’re going to get better and more conditioned. Expect more wins out of us.”

Taylor singled out keeper Luke Rost for praise as he kept the sheet clean. The senior hadn’t played organized soccer since middle school before Monday, but took soccer up this year to give the Celtics some size in the net.

Still, Taylor wants to see growth from his older players over the course of the next week.

“I need them to lead,” he said. “I need more leadership, I need more talking and I need them to listen. That comes with time, though.”

As for Joliet Catholic, there will certainly be a lot of lessons to learn from the opener. After upsetting Providence last year during the regular season, they struggled to move at the same speed as the Celtics on Monday.

“From the first whistle we were too slow,” coach Tom Cranmer said. “It was really apparent from the get-go that we were moving too slow and it took us from the 30-minute mark of the second half to the 12-minute mark where we played well. We kept the pressure up, we were much more organized and we were able to get good stuff going forward. ... We don’t want to do that when we’re already down 2-0, though.”

Providence Catholic hosts Westmont on Tuesday while Joliet Catholic will visit Plainfield South on Thursday.