Lincoln-Way East Boys Soccer Comeback Stuns Oswego East

Talk about a making a name for yourself in your Lincoln-Way East debut.

Manny Rios, who plays for the Chicago Fire Academy and transferred from Lake Central High School in Indiana, laced up his cleats for the first time on Thursday as a member of the Griffins soccer team.

With 6:05 remaining in a 3-3 match, Rios showed what he's going to bring to the Griffins this fall, as he scored the game-winning goal, blasting a shot off the hands of Oswego East keeper Dakota Bruns and into the back of the net.

"Soccer is funny game, and the score can change at any time," Rios said. "It was a good play, and I just took the shot and luckily it went in."

Rios was given the opportunity to score the game-winner after a handball violation on the Wolves. Lincoln-Way East coach Brian Papa wasn't sure if Rios would be able to deliver the go-ahead goal, but he was ecstatic to watch the results.

"Us coaches were wondering what was going to happen, and we thought about letting Anthony (Cetera) have it, but Anthony's played with him with the Fire so we let him have it," Papa said. "He put it right in, so that answered any question we had there. He's a striker, which is what you need and he's very creative, but he's also only practiced with us since he transferred."

Lincoln-Way East was fortunate to be in a position to shoot for the game-winner as the Griffins fell behind just a couple minutes in on the first of three goals from Oswego East standout Jorge Alvarez.

"He just had our number, and the thing is we feel our strength this year is our defense," Papa said. "We thought we had things corrected in the second half, but they scored right away again.

"Fortunately, Joe Seper was able to play steady back there because I don't think we would've stayed with this team without him."

Junior Ryan Tempel scored the Griffins lone goal in the first half just 33:36 in, but that was it for the offense until junior Michael Roth's pass was perfectly headed into the net by Alan Hernandez with 16:28 remaining.

The game-tying goal was created from Rios' cross. As the defense converged on Rios, he sent the ball to Cetera, who booted a low liner into the net with 7:36 left.

"To be honest, it was a great setup by Manny (Rios) and wouldn't have happened if he didn't come and check the ball and screen the goalkeeper," Cetera said. "After that, the adrenalin was pumping for the whole team and the momentum was on our backs, and we knew we were going to finish the game and win."

Winning the opener of the season hasn't been commonplace for a Griffins' program that has been so-so in recent years. Perhaps now, with players like Rios and Cetera, among others, things will be different.

"We were very pleased with the comeback and you can see they're excited," Papa said. "It's been a long time since we started the season off on the right foot. Maybe we'll have a bookend season and win the first game and the last one because we've been having the bookends the other way recently and it's been tiring."

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