Oct. 06--When it comes to playing soccer, Ivan Surlina of Lombard says it parallels life.
"There is no better feeling than playing," he said. "You have your teammates and all the camaraderie. At the end of the day, it you don't go on and play after college, you still take the lessons you learned from playing and put it into real life. You get a lot of real-world experiences playing this sport."
Surlina, a Glenbard East graduate, has just about experienced it all in soccer.
He was a member of a national youth team from 2008-2011 and was on a squad that finished sixth in the 2009 Manchester United Premier Cup with the finals in England.
He began his college career at Lewis University where he had three game-winning goals for the Flyers as a freshman in 2013. He transferred for what he called "a change of scenery" to the University of St. Francis in Joliet and now, as a junior, he's hoping to help turn around a program that is having difficulty winning.
Through 11 games, he was second on the team with three goals, one of which was a game-winner. The problem is, the Saints are not winning all that many games and had a 2-9 record with seven straight losses. They went through a painful 360-minute stretch of no goals before a score in the first minute of a 6-2 loss to Trinity International University on Oct. 3.
Things didn't look too bad when they opened the season at 2-2 with a pair of 3-2 victories over Huntington and Missouri Baptist, but the bottom has fallen out since.
"We had high expectations, but we lost some players at the beginning of the year and we have some freshmen starting, but that's not an excuse," Surlina said. "We have potential, but we're not living up to it at this point. We have to regroup and keep working hard. It's a slow process. That's all you can do."
Surlina comes from a soccer family. He said his father, Mile, played on a professional team in Yugoslavia. His brother, Robert, played at Eastern Illinois University.
"I watched my brother play and I wanted to try it," Surlina said. "I had a knack for the game and I've been at it for 16 years."
There are a couple of games left in the season and he is hoping the Saints can build a foundation and flourish as they did four years ago with a 10-6-2 mark.
"Sometimes it's just mental mistakes and lapses that we need to fix," Surlina said. "It might not come together fully this season, but maybe next season. You can't complain about it -- you have to just keep working hard."
Vorva is a freelance reporter.
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