BC's Gousios shows way in easy win

Ryan Warner of Burlington Central (left) controls the ball against Yorkville's Javier Cardenas during action Saturday at the Central Tournament. Warner scored a goal in the Rockets' 6-2 victory.
SHAUNA BITTLE | Staff Photographer

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BURLINGTON -- Only three games into the season, Burlington Central's soccer team and its high-scoring offense is already starting to turn heads.

After routing Hampshire on Thursday, the Rockets kicked off their 10th annual Rocket Invitational by beating Yorkville 6-2 on Saturday thanks to a more-than-efficient offensive attack. Central (2-1) scored three goals in each half to earn the win and will play South Elgin on Tuesday for the right to advance to Saturday's championship game.

"Our offense is definitely coming together," said Rockets coach Michael Gecan. "But we made a couple mistakes on defense that typically you don't expect from us."

Freshman forward Chris Gousios led the Rockets' offense and made his varsity presence known. Already leading 2-1, Gousios scored the last goal of the first half and first goal of the second half for his first-ever varsity tallies, all while helping put the game away at 4-1.

"I had a good feeling coming in and played my hardest," Gousios said. "I've been working hard at soccer all my life and it feels great being able to compete at this level as a freshman."

After a Steve Hall goal with 25 minutes left made it 5-2, senior Charlie Schmidlin capped off the victory with a header off a corner kick at the 13:15 mark to make it 6-2. Junior Charles Fletcher and senior Ryan Warner also scored goals in the contest off assists from Jonathan Klopcic.

"The goal is to win the tournament," said Gecan, who guided the Rockets to a tournament title in 2006. "We got third place last year but we gotta face a tough South Elgin team first."

Hampshire didn't fare as well at the Rocket Invitational as it lost 6-1 to Kaneland. The Knights took a 3-0 lead at intermission after Genaro Garcia put it past Hampshire goalkeeper Nathan Sorg just as time expired on the clock. Sorg came up with eight of his 13 saves in the first half on what proved to a be a busy day for him.

Offensively, the Whip-Purs (0-2) got their only goal of the game and first of the season when Andrew Obmalay scored off an assist from Phil Bracke at the 30:45 mark in the second half.

"We have to stay positive," said Hampshire coach John Gosling. "We're young and we're building for the future. We can't care about what's going on on the scoreboard. It's a matter of learning and getting better."