Tie that binds frustrates DGN, Bartlett
Hawks, Trojans tie 1-1 at coaches reunion
By Bill McLean
BARTLETT — A trio of men with ties to Ajax FC Naperville coached in the Downers Grove North-Bartlett boys soccer match Thursday afternoon.
DGN coach Mike Schmitt and his assistant, Mike Corvo, played for the west suburban club in the early 2000s. So did Bartlett coach Vince Revak.
In sunny, crisp conditions on Thursday, their teams settled for a … tie.
A 1-1 final, to be exact.
It was an all-too-familiar result for Revak and his Hawks, who will enter next week’s Class 3A state playoffs with a palindromic 8-5-8 record.
“Eight ties — that’s a ridiculous number,” Revak, half chuckling, said, adding it’s also a state-high number of stalemates. “But we did some good things today. We showed more urgency in the second half [after trailing 1-0 at the half], and some of our boys, especially on defense, got to play more minutes than they had previously.
“The boys,” he continued, “stepped up after halftime and took control.”
His boys kicked up the volume and urgency in the final 40 minutes. Senior midfielder Amine Medmoun, either standing or pacing in front of the Hawks’ bench for most of the second half, shouted messages of encouragement continuously. If he has any semblance of a voice today, it’d be an upset.
Bartlett sophomores Marco Zamora, a forward, and Giovanni Palid, a midfielder, connected for the home side’s lone goal in the 45th minute. Zamora sped down the left flank and delivered a scorching cross to Palid.
Palid’s right knee redirected the pass past Trojans junior goalkeeper Gavin Crowson.
“I saw Marco running and got to where I needed to be,” Palid said. “I arrived at the right time.”
The tally was Palid’s third of the season.
DGN senior midfielder Peter Bednar recorded his third goal of 2019, as well, with his coming in the 21st minute after a lengthy feed from senior midfielder Alessandro Karrow.
Bednar settled the cross, launched from the left side of the grassy pitch, and booted a shot from just outside the 18-yard box at the Bartlett Activity Complex.
The ball entered the goal above the reach of Hawks senior keeper Jeremy Taylor.
“Great loft from Alessandro,” said Schmitt, whose crew finished the regular season with a 7-9-3 record. “And well hit by Peter. The movement [of the scoring sequence] — that’s what impressed me the most. It’s not always easy playing on a grass field like this; cold weather can make it knotty.”
A defensive midfielder from the outset of his final prep season, Bednar battled as an attacking midfielder Thursday because of the season-ending injury that junior midfielder Trygve Hansen suffered at Montini on Oct. 11. Hansen had notched eight goals and eight assists when he suffered a fractured elbow in Lombard.
“Really unfortunate,” Schmitt said before the start of the nonconference match.
At the half, Revak and his Trojans used practically every second of the 10 minutes to look back at their first half effort and discuss adjustments.
“It was, ‘Wake up, wake up, wake up,’” Palid said, referring to the primary message of the team’s halftime huddle. “We played angry in the second half, in a way, but all of us were into it and on the same page. We picked each other up, too.
“When we play like that, and that’s how we’re going to have to play in the playoffs, we’re a good team.”
Forward Sean Cox, yet another head-turning Hawks sophomore, played inspired, intense soccer late. With two minutes left, and with both squads playing with playoff urgency, Cox and a Trojans defender hustled in tandem toward the corner closest to Bartlett’s bench in a battle to secure possession.
Cox tumbled, back first, flattening the corner flag. But he bounced back almost as quickly as the flag did and continued to do all he could to break the tie.
“I would not want to be an outside back covering Sean, because you’d be running all day,” Revak said.
With time winding down in the 80th minute and Bartlett having earned a corner kick, the indefatigable Cox collected the ball and sprinted to a corner. His ensuing kick set up a header seven yards in front of Crowson, who made a high, two-handed save to preserve the tie.
Schmitt admitted his visiting crew came out a tad flat in the second half, but he was encouraged by the Trojans’ collective response after Bartlett’s goal.
“We’ve played some really good soccer and some not-so-good soccer this season; we’ve been too on-and-off,” Schmitt noted before Thursday’s kickoff. “We need more consistency. We need to play a full 80 minutes.
“We hope to come out of this game with some positives.”
Looking ahead to the “second season” — aka the postseason — Revak revealed he had four days to help his boys clean up some elements of their game.
“We have to solve some of our communication issues,” he said. “And we’ll have to minimize mistakes the next time we play.”
Bartlett, seeded 11th in the Class 3A St. Charles East Sectional, faces sixth-seeded Glenbard West in a Conant Regional semifinal Oct. 22 at 6:30 p.m.; DGN, seeded ninth in the Class 3A Lyons Sectional, is scheduled to play seventh-seeded Jones in a Morton Regional semifinal Oct. 22 at 7 p.m.
Footnotes
Former Ajax FC Naperville mates Revak, Schmitt and Corvo played soccer in college. But not together. Revak attended Drake University; 2003 DGN graduates Schmitt, in his sixth season at his alma mater, and Corvo, a former all-state forward for the Trojans, went to St. Mary’s (Minn.) and Northern Illinois University, respectively. … Downers Grove North starting junior defender Brian Benton sustained an ankle injury in the first half Thursday afternoon and did not return. … Palid, Bartlett’s goal scorer Thursday, injured his left shoulder in a collision with a Trojan in the 61st minute but re-entered the match 13 minutes later. … Twice in one minute in the first half, Trojans junior defender Devon Pounds halted a Hawks rush.
Starting lineups
Downers Grove North
GK: Gavin Crowson
D: Brian Benton
D: Colin Doyle
D: James Nuttall
D: Devon Pounds
M: Peter Bednar
M: Alessandro Karrow
M: Andrew M. Janowiak
M: Lucas Turk
F: Samuel Bull
F: Mason Roberts
Bartlett
GK: Jeremy Taylor
D: Ethan Sproule
D: Sebastian Gonzalez
D: Nico Gomez
D: Sebastian Gluszak
M: Raj Parikh
M: Hernan Garcia
M: Giovanni Palid
M: Edgar Leon
F: Marco Zamora
F: Sean Cox
Chicagoland Soccer Men of the Match: Peter Bednar, sr., M, Downers Grove North
Giovanni Palid, so., M, Bartlett
Referees: Bruce Bode (center); Nick Gouskos; Bob Hansen
Scoring summary
First half
DGN — Bednar (Karrow), 21’
Second half
Bartlett — Palid (Zamora), 45’
Hawks, Trojans tie 1-1 at coaches reunion
By Bill McLean
BARTLETT — A trio of men with ties to Ajax FC Naperville coached in the Downers Grove North-Bartlett boys soccer match Thursday afternoon.
DGN coach Mike Schmitt and his assistant, Mike Corvo, played for the west suburban club in the early 2000s. So did Bartlett coach Vince Revak.
In sunny, crisp conditions on Thursday, their teams settled for a … tie.
A 1-1 final, to be exact.
It was an all-too-familiar result for Revak and his Hawks, who will enter next week’s Class 3A state playoffs with a palindromic 8-5-8 record.
“Eight ties — that’s a ridiculous number,” Revak, half chuckling, said, adding it’s also a state-high number of stalemates. “But we did some good things today. We showed more urgency in the second half [after trailing 1-0 at the half], and some of our boys, especially on defense, got to play more minutes than they had previously.
“The boys,” he continued, “stepped up after halftime and took control.”
His boys kicked up the volume and urgency in the final 40 minutes. Senior midfielder Amine Medmoun, either standing or pacing in front of the Hawks’ bench for most of the second half, shouted messages of encouragement continuously. If he has any semblance of a voice today, it’d be an upset.
Bartlett sophomores Marco Zamora, a forward, and Giovanni Palid, a midfielder, connected for the home side’s lone goal in the 45th minute. Zamora sped down the left flank and delivered a scorching cross to Palid.
Palid’s right knee redirected the pass past Trojans junior goalkeeper Gavin Crowson.
“I saw Marco running and got to where I needed to be,” Palid said. “I arrived at the right time.”
The tally was Palid’s third of the season.
DGN senior midfielder Peter Bednar recorded his third goal of 2019, as well, with his coming in the 21st minute after a lengthy feed from senior midfielder Alessandro Karrow.
Bednar settled the cross, launched from the left side of the grassy pitch, and booted a shot from just outside the 18-yard box at the Bartlett Activity Complex.
The ball entered the goal above the reach of Hawks senior keeper Jeremy Taylor.
“Great loft from Alessandro,” said Schmitt, whose crew finished the regular season with a 7-9-3 record. “And well hit by Peter. The movement [of the scoring sequence] — that’s what impressed me the most. It’s not always easy playing on a grass field like this; cold weather can make it knotty.”
A defensive midfielder from the outset of his final prep season, Bednar battled as an attacking midfielder Thursday because of the season-ending injury that junior midfielder Trygve Hansen suffered at Montini on Oct. 11. Hansen had notched eight goals and eight assists when he suffered a fractured elbow in Lombard.
“Really unfortunate,” Schmitt said before the start of the nonconference match.
At the half, Revak and his Trojans used practically every second of the 10 minutes to look back at their first half effort and discuss adjustments.
“It was, ‘Wake up, wake up, wake up,’” Palid said, referring to the primary message of the team’s halftime huddle. “We played angry in the second half, in a way, but all of us were into it and on the same page. We picked each other up, too.
“When we play like that, and that’s how we’re going to have to play in the playoffs, we’re a good team.”
Forward Sean Cox, yet another head-turning Hawks sophomore, played inspired, intense soccer late. With two minutes left, and with both squads playing with playoff urgency, Cox and a Trojans defender hustled in tandem toward the corner closest to Bartlett’s bench in a battle to secure possession.
Cox tumbled, back first, flattening the corner flag. But he bounced back almost as quickly as the flag did and continued to do all he could to break the tie.
“I would not want to be an outside back covering Sean, because you’d be running all day,” Revak said.
With time winding down in the 80th minute and Bartlett having earned a corner kick, the indefatigable Cox collected the ball and sprinted to a corner. His ensuing kick set up a header seven yards in front of Crowson, who made a high, two-handed save to preserve the tie.
Schmitt admitted his visiting crew came out a tad flat in the second half, but he was encouraged by the Trojans’ collective response after Bartlett’s goal.
“We’ve played some really good soccer and some not-so-good soccer this season; we’ve been too on-and-off,” Schmitt noted before Thursday’s kickoff. “We need more consistency. We need to play a full 80 minutes.
“We hope to come out of this game with some positives.”
Looking ahead to the “second season” — aka the postseason — Revak revealed he had four days to help his boys clean up some elements of their game.
“We have to solve some of our communication issues,” he said. “And we’ll have to minimize mistakes the next time we play.”
Bartlett, seeded 11th in the Class 3A St. Charles East Sectional, faces sixth-seeded Glenbard West in a Conant Regional semifinal Oct. 22 at 6:30 p.m.; DGN, seeded ninth in the Class 3A Lyons Sectional, is scheduled to play seventh-seeded Jones in a Morton Regional semifinal Oct. 22 at 7 p.m.
Footnotes
Former Ajax FC Naperville mates Revak, Schmitt and Corvo played soccer in college. But not together. Revak attended Drake University; 2003 DGN graduates Schmitt, in his sixth season at his alma mater, and Corvo, a former all-state forward for the Trojans, went to St. Mary’s (Minn.) and Northern Illinois University, respectively. … Downers Grove North starting junior defender Brian Benton sustained an ankle injury in the first half Thursday afternoon and did not return. … Palid, Bartlett’s goal scorer Thursday, injured his left shoulder in a collision with a Trojan in the 61st minute but re-entered the match 13 minutes later. … Twice in one minute in the first half, Trojans junior defender Devon Pounds halted a Hawks rush.
Starting lineups
Downers Grove North
GK: Gavin Crowson
D: Brian Benton
D: Colin Doyle
D: James Nuttall
D: Devon Pounds
M: Peter Bednar
M: Alessandro Karrow
M: Andrew M. Janowiak
M: Lucas Turk
F: Samuel Bull
F: Mason Roberts
Bartlett
GK: Jeremy Taylor
D: Ethan Sproule
D: Sebastian Gonzalez
D: Nico Gomez
D: Sebastian Gluszak
M: Raj Parikh
M: Hernan Garcia
M: Giovanni Palid
M: Edgar Leon
F: Marco Zamora
F: Sean Cox
Chicagoland Soccer Men of the Match: Peter Bednar, sr., M, Downers Grove North
Giovanni Palid, so., M, Bartlett
Referees: Bruce Bode (center); Nick Gouskos; Bob Hansen
Scoring summary
First half
DGN — Bednar (Karrow), 21’
Second half
Bartlett — Palid (Zamora), 45’