Lisle seeking first boys soccer title

Updated: March 22, 2011 5:14PM

You won't need a program to identify the Lisle boys soccer team at the Class 1A state finals this weekend in Naperville.

All of the Lions are sporting mohawks, which they unveiled for Tuesday's Lisle Sectional championship game, much to the chagrin of Lisle coach Paul Kohorn.

"I thought that was a pretty gutsy thing to do," Kohorn said. "When we were down 1-0 at halftime, Grant Fitzgerald said, ‘We look pretty silly so we better win this.' At the awards banquet I think I'm going to hand out awards for the best one and the worst one."

Fitzgerald scored twice in the second half to lift the Lions (15-9-1) to a 2-1 victory over Latin. They will make their state finals debut Friday at 5:30 p.m. when they take on Stillman Valley (21-3) in the first semifinal at North Central College. Peoria Christian (19-3-3) faces Columbia (18-2) in the other semi.

Two victories will give the Lisle its first state title in any boys sport and 100 victories since Kohorn started the soccer program in 2003.

"It's pretty crazy at school," said Kohorn, who will step down after the season to take a college coaching job. "I'm not a teacher so nobody knew who I was before and now everybody knows me."

Opponents know that Fitzgerald is the main Lion. The senior midfielder is the school's all-time leading scorer with 88 goals, including 28 this year. But the Lions have two other weapons in junior midfielder Pat Webb (seven goals, six assists) and sophomore Eric Osika (seven goals, seven assists), who assisted on Fitzgerald's game-winner against Latin and had a goal and an assist in a 3-1 sectional semifinal victory over Peotone, which avenged a 4-3 loss on Sept. 9.

"[Webb] does a lot of work in the middle handling the ball and helps us transition from defense to offense and back again," Kohorn said. "Eric has all the tools. He missed about half the season with an injury. When he came back is when we started to heat up.

"If teams [focus] too much on Grant, Eric can score. He looks to pass first but if he needs to score he can."

Lisle's back line of juniors Taylor Morten, Matt Gill and Jake Soukup and freshman Mitch Boyce, along with junior goalie Kazim Khan, will have its hands full stopping senior forward Uriel Perez, who leads Stillman Valley with 26 goals. The Cardinals, also making their first semifinal appearance, have won 11 straight games, 10 of them by shutout.

"They're scrappy and the play a similar style to us," Kohorn said. "I think it's a good matchup for us."

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