Despite the physicality of Wednesday night's match with host Illinois Wesleyan, North Park still found a way to earn its 11th victory of the season.
North Park overcame four yellow cards and 12 fouls to earn a 3-0 win over the Titans, moving into sole possession of first place in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin men's soccer standings after Wheaton suffered a 2-1 setback to Carthage.
For the Vikings it was their third win in the last four matches, and it marked the 200th victory for Coach John Born in his illustrious 20-year coaching career with both North Park and the Milwaukee School of Engineering.
"We played a very solid game," Born said. "We executed well in the middle-third of the field, which allowed us to create a lot of good chances."
North Park attacked early and often as was evident in its 13-9 total shot advantage, including 8-3 in the second half. The Vikings took a 1-0 lead in the first half when Diego Lashlee put away his second goal of the season off an assist from Rick Anderson at the 29-minute mark. It solidified the tone NP was hoping to set, but the Vikings did most of their damage in the second half.
"We made some adjustments in the second and I was very happy with the performance," Born said. "It was a really good team effort and the defense was solid."
Fredrik Greiff gave the visitors a 2-0 lead not even five minutes into the second when he put away his fourth goal of the season. Anderson set up his teammate for his second assist of the night off a pass on the left side that Greiff buried in the bottom right corner of the net. North Park's final goal came in the 57th minute when reigning CCIW Offensive Player of the Week Pedram Tahmi-Masoleh put away his team-best 11th goal of the season on a Greiff pass. In all, North Park fired seven shots on goal to IWU's three.
North Park (11-2, 3-0) returns to action this Saturday when it travels to River Forest for a non-conference matchup with national-power Dominican University. The Vikings return to CCIW play Wednesday, Oct. 22 when they host Carthage College at 7:30 p.m.
"This has been a unique year for the conference in the fact that I've never seen this much parity," Born said. "Starting off at 3-0 really puts us in a nice spot, but we're nowhere near done. We still have a huge test in front of us with the remaining four games and we're definitely not going to overlook anybody."
