Dahm scores two, KV repeats

October 12, 2008 By Jeff Manes Post-Tribune correspondent

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LOWELL -- Saturday's sectional final at Lowell between Kankakee Valley and Morgan Township was a tale of two halves. Kankakee Valley came out like gangbusters and dominated the first 40 minutes.

The Kougars put nine shots on goal to Morgan's three and got unassisted goals by forward Evan Dahm (34:20) and midfielder John Sobierajski (22:15) to take a two-goal at the half. They would need them as Morgan (11-6) came roaring back in the second half before the Kougars held on for their second consecutive sectional title, winning 3-2.

"All season long we kept saying sectionals, sectionals, sectionals," said coach Duane Vanderwoude of KV (6-10-2). "We knew we couldn't win the conference. But we knew we could win this sectional. We lost some games during the season where we were doing some different things on the field; we just needed to check them out. It was all getting ready for this."

Where KV controlled the ball in the first half, it was the Cherokees who kept it in KV territory for most of the second half.

"I wanted them to push up more," Morgan coach Todd Syren said. "We wanted to put more pressure in the middle of the field and that's what we started doing. We just didn't finish again in the box, to complete the score. We had many chances; we just didn't get it."

Morgan defender Kyle Semento scored unassisted goals at 33:05 and 12:05. The latter on a throw-in. But in between those goals it was Dahm, a sophomore, who picked up his second goal of the game at 24:35. That was the difference and that was also the only shot on goal that KV had in the last 40 minutes of the game.

"I questioned whether I was going to put him (Dahm) on JV or varsity at the beginning of the year," Vanderwoulde said. "I told him, 'Evan, I'm going to put you on varsity and I might have bump you back to JV. He just cranked things up. He's been our leading scorer this year.

Morgan got to the finals by defeating Rensselaer 4-2 earlier in the day. The Kougars defeated Lowell 4-1 in their early game.