Dukes place three on all-conference team; Reinhofer named all-sectional.
By Mike Miazga
Correspondent
Overall, York boys soccer coach Lukasz Majewski can’t complain about what his squad accomplished this season.
The Dukes finished the year 13-9 overall, went 3-3 in West Suburban Conference Silver Division play and advanced to a Class 3A regional title game.
“I’m happy,” he said. “We did some good things. I don’t know if we peaked too early than we probably wanted to? Injuries had something to do with us peaking. We found a comfort level and were playing our best ball a third of the way into the season. That’s when we started stacking wins and playing our type of soccer and attacking the net and putting teams under pressure. We were relentless and we were putting goals away early in the game.
“There was a four- or five-game stretch where we were averaging four or five goals a game. Then the injuries kind of slowed things down. Things seemed a little off the last couple of weeks.”
York lost 2-1 in the regional title game to Glenbard East. “They had a 2-0 lead in the second half,” said Majewski. “We were the three seed and they were the six seed. In the first half we played with very little urgency. I think we thought the higher seed would automatically advance. That came back to bite us. We had several opportunities in the first half. We had a goal called back against us because the referee called offside. We had a defensive breakdown in the second half where the ball trickled into our own goal from nine yards out. The wind may have aided it a little bit. It was 1-0 in the first few minutes of the second half. They scored again 15-20 minutes later on a nice combo play.”
Majewski explained being down 2-0, York put all its efforts up front in order to try and generate more scoring chances.
“We scored a goal with 13 minutes left and kept pressing and pressing and pressing, but we couldn’t get the equalizer,” he said. “It was kind of a heartbreaking loss. If we played the way we played in the second half in the first half with our pressing and sense of urgency, it might have been an entirely different outcome, but at the same time that’s not necessarily the case.”
Scoring threat Joe Reinhofer returned after a hamstring injury but re-injured it 15 minutes into the game and did not return.
“Give credit to Glenbard East,” said Majewski. “They played well and did what they had to do and took advantage of opportunities that were given to them. This was a game where we outshot and out-chanced the opponent again, at least in the first half. We weren’t able to get the result we wanted.”
Joe Chornji had York’s only goal off a head ball.
York advanced to the regional final after a 4-0 win against Addison Trail in the semifinals. The game was tied 0-0 before York exploded for four goals in the second half.
“We really took off in that second half,” said Majewski.
Reinhofer, Michael Achepohl and Joe Meade (a sophomore) were named to the all-WSC Silver team, while Reinhofer was named all-sectional for the second year in a row.
“Joe only played in 11 games during the season and had 10 goals and eight assists,” said Majewski. “If you think about the potential of what could have been. He would have had a really nice full season. He still had a really nice season.”
Majewski also liked how his team came together with a wide variety of age ranges on the roster.
“I’m happy with the fact we meshed the younger kids with the older kids,” he said. “The younger kids had plenty of opportunities to play during the season. And hopefully they will be able to continue to move their games up the next couple years. We had five sophomores on the team and each one played significant minutes during the season. You never really are satisfied unless you win a state championship. At the same time, we saw a lot of positives in the way we played and the way the boys competed. When I would talk to other coaches at the conference meet they were impressed with how fast we were and the cohesive style we brought to the table. Overall, it was a good season.”
