Fremd gives coach birthday win vs. Hersey
Ashley Scesniak's PK gift wraps 1-0 win for Vikings’ Keller
By Bill McLean
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS — Steve Keller’s birthday evening wasn’t an ecstatic one Wednesday.
For 80 minutes, that is.
But the longtime, tells-it-like-it-is Fremd girls soccer coach, who turned 49 on Cinco de Mayo, had no intention to return the present — a 1-0 defeat of host Hersey — his club had given him.
“I’ll take it, but we were fortunate,” Keller admitted at Roland R. Goins Stadium on a chilly night. “We did not play very intelligent soccer tonight. We struggled to kill the game off. We have to be better tactically than we were tonight. We weren’t at our best.
“We appeared disconnected.”
Keller’s frank reaction did not surprise Hersey coach Michael Rusniak, who, like Keller, coaches both the boys and girls varsity soccer teams each academic year.
“Steve expects his teams to play at a certain level each game,” Rusniak said. “I have such respect for him and his teams, because his teams always move the ball well and play with intensity. We felt Fremd’s intensity tonight. The Fremd team you saw tonight will look nothing like it will in two, three weeks. Fremd teams always evolve, always improve from week to week.
“That’s what teams, led by successful coaches, do,” he added.
Fremd’s 2021 team — ranked no. 19 in the Chicagoland Soccer Top 25 — needed only a penalty kick from senior Ashley Scesniak to clinch Wednesday’s Mid-Suburban League match and improve to 4-1-0, 3-0-0. A hand-ball in the box allowed Scesniak to break the stalemate in the 42nd minute.
Scesniak scooted a clean, low kick to the left of Huskies sophomore goalkeeper Alli Paulsen.
“My previous penalty kick did not turn out well,” Scesniak said. “I’ve practiced PKs a lot. Tonight I hammered it. I was calm and confident.”
Scesniak was the best player on the pitch in the first half, breaking free regularly to collect a pass from a teammate or dribbling craftily to either create space for a shot or to dish the ball to a teammate.
“Calming presence,” Keller said of one of Scesniak’s many strengths. “She stays under control when pressured, and we rely on her to be a playmaker.”
Ashley’s younger sister, freshman back Bella, has adjusted admirably to big-time prep soccer, in part because of the example set by Vikings senior center back Palak Khera.
“Palak,” Ashley Scesniak said, “is a wall back there, physical and smart and chatty. Communication is so important in this sport, especially on defense. And she helps my little sister.”
Wednesday night the little sis allowed Keller to sound a lot like Marlon Brando’s character Stanley Kowalski in the movie “A Streetcar Named Desire.”
“Bella!” bellowed Keller, whose varsity doesn’t feature a Vike named Stella Kowalski. HE shouted near the end of the match to bark a reminder to his rookie back.
Hersey’s roster includes four freshmen and three sophomores. Huskies frosh Faith Sena, a midfielder before day one of her high school career, darts and cuts as a forward for Rusniak’s crew, which absorbed a tough 3-2 loss to Hoffman Estates on Monday.
Hersey (1-4-1, 1-3-0) had fallen behind 2-0 before equalizing. Hoffman’s Hawks netted the clincher in the final five minutes.
“Our team responded well to that setback,” Rusniak said Wednesday night. “The best part of Fremd’s penalty kick, for us? How we continued to fight and did not hang our heads afterward. We knew there’d be bumps here and there in our season with our inexperience. But tonight our team probably played its best soccer of the season.
“It’s a good, hardworking group of kids,” he added.
Huskies junior defender Cassie Caruso turned in her strongest performance of the year, Rusniak noted. The same Cassie Caruso had one question for Hersey assistant Sam Reiff after the loss to Fremd.
“Cassie went right up to Sam and asked, ‘What can I do to get better?’ ” Rusniak shared. “You have to love that kind of attitude. I hear similar questions at practice. What I like to tell my players is, ‘Continue to have confidence in yourself.’ ”
Hersey received more lengthy throw-ins from junior Becca Caliendo. The midfielder owns swimmer-strong shoulders; she’s a breaststroker when her soccer cleats hibernate.
At least once Wednesday night, as Caliendo stood near a sideline and prepared to catapult the ball from above her head, a Fremd player yelled, “Treat it like a corner kick!”
The distance of one of her heaves seemed to travel the equivalent of a 747’s fuselage and created a scoring chance for the hosts in the 18th minute.
Some 16 minutes later Sena tapped a short corner kick to Caruso, who tapped it right back to Sena, who took the Huskies’ final shot on goal of the night.
Winning keeper Sam Gary secured it.
Fremd junior defender Shannon Moran diffused another dangerous sequence by engaging in a scrum and kicking the ball out of bounds with 27 ticks left in the contest.
“Our girls showed energy until the end,” Rusniak said. “They’re enjoying the opportunity to play this spring (after the pandemic scrubbed last spring’s season). They look at each opportunity to compete in a game as a gift. And our seniors are doing a good job of reminding our freshmen and sophomores that playing for your school, under the lights, is really special.”
Moving forward, Fremd hosts Rolling Meadows at 7 p.m. Friday; Hersey travels to Schaumburg on Friday (7:15 p.m. start) and hits the road again the next day for a 12:15 p.m. match versus Barrington, ranked no. 7 in the Chicagoland Soccer Top 25.
Footnotes:
You again? Yes. A Rusniak-coached team battled a Keller-coached team on the 5th of the month for a second-straight month Wednesday night in Arlington Heights. Keller’s boys varsity had nipped Rusniak’s male varsity squad 3-2 in overtime April 5. “I told Steve, before our game tonight, ‘It’s like you were here about a week ago.’” Hersey’s boys finished 9-2-0 and no. 20 in Chicagoland Soccer’s Final 50 rankings; Fremd ended up 9-3-0 and no. 28. … Fremd’s girls gave Keller a batch of cookies for his birthday after the victory. “We were thinking of buying, and then wearing, sombreros today,” Vikings senior midfielder Ashley Scesniak said. … Hersey’s Caliendo, on Rusniak and the team’s cohesion: “He likes to give targeted, positive feedback to each of us. What I love about our team is the family atmosphere we’ve created.”
Starting lineups
Fremd
GK Sam Gary
D Shannon Moran
D Palak Khera
D Bella Scesniak
M Abigail Iannuzzelli
M Ashley Scesniak
M Kylie Williams
M Kaitlyn Rodi
M Gemma Gillespie
F Lily Spotak
F Caeleigh Stone
Hersey
GK Alli Paulsen
D Natalie Suto
D Alison Beck
D Jane Stefaniak
D Cassie Caruso
M Avery Williams
M Norah Viers
M Becca Caliendo
F Maddy Kim
F Faith Sena
F Avery Larson
Chicagoland Soccer MVP of the Match: Ashley Scesniak, sr., MF, Fremd
Scoring summary
First half
No scoring
Second half
Fremd — A. Scesniak, PK, 42’
Ashley Scesniak's PK gift wraps 1-0 win for Vikings’ Keller
By Bill McLean
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS — Steve Keller’s birthday evening wasn’t an ecstatic one Wednesday.
For 80 minutes, that is.
But the longtime, tells-it-like-it-is Fremd girls soccer coach, who turned 49 on Cinco de Mayo, had no intention to return the present — a 1-0 defeat of host Hersey — his club had given him.
“I’ll take it, but we were fortunate,” Keller admitted at Roland R. Goins Stadium on a chilly night. “We did not play very intelligent soccer tonight. We struggled to kill the game off. We have to be better tactically than we were tonight. We weren’t at our best.
“We appeared disconnected.”
Keller’s frank reaction did not surprise Hersey coach Michael Rusniak, who, like Keller, coaches both the boys and girls varsity soccer teams each academic year.
“Steve expects his teams to play at a certain level each game,” Rusniak said. “I have such respect for him and his teams, because his teams always move the ball well and play with intensity. We felt Fremd’s intensity tonight. The Fremd team you saw tonight will look nothing like it will in two, three weeks. Fremd teams always evolve, always improve from week to week.
“That’s what teams, led by successful coaches, do,” he added.
Fremd’s 2021 team — ranked no. 19 in the Chicagoland Soccer Top 25 — needed only a penalty kick from senior Ashley Scesniak to clinch Wednesday’s Mid-Suburban League match and improve to 4-1-0, 3-0-0. A hand-ball in the box allowed Scesniak to break the stalemate in the 42nd minute.
Scesniak scooted a clean, low kick to the left of Huskies sophomore goalkeeper Alli Paulsen.
“My previous penalty kick did not turn out well,” Scesniak said. “I’ve practiced PKs a lot. Tonight I hammered it. I was calm and confident.”
Scesniak was the best player on the pitch in the first half, breaking free regularly to collect a pass from a teammate or dribbling craftily to either create space for a shot or to dish the ball to a teammate.
“Calming presence,” Keller said of one of Scesniak’s many strengths. “She stays under control when pressured, and we rely on her to be a playmaker.”
Ashley’s younger sister, freshman back Bella, has adjusted admirably to big-time prep soccer, in part because of the example set by Vikings senior center back Palak Khera.
“Palak,” Ashley Scesniak said, “is a wall back there, physical and smart and chatty. Communication is so important in this sport, especially on defense. And she helps my little sister.”
Wednesday night the little sis allowed Keller to sound a lot like Marlon Brando’s character Stanley Kowalski in the movie “A Streetcar Named Desire.”
“Bella!” bellowed Keller, whose varsity doesn’t feature a Vike named Stella Kowalski. HE shouted near the end of the match to bark a reminder to his rookie back.
Hersey’s roster includes four freshmen and three sophomores. Huskies frosh Faith Sena, a midfielder before day one of her high school career, darts and cuts as a forward for Rusniak’s crew, which absorbed a tough 3-2 loss to Hoffman Estates on Monday.
Hersey (1-4-1, 1-3-0) had fallen behind 2-0 before equalizing. Hoffman’s Hawks netted the clincher in the final five minutes.
“Our team responded well to that setback,” Rusniak said Wednesday night. “The best part of Fremd’s penalty kick, for us? How we continued to fight and did not hang our heads afterward. We knew there’d be bumps here and there in our season with our inexperience. But tonight our team probably played its best soccer of the season.
“It’s a good, hardworking group of kids,” he added.
Huskies junior defender Cassie Caruso turned in her strongest performance of the year, Rusniak noted. The same Cassie Caruso had one question for Hersey assistant Sam Reiff after the loss to Fremd.
“Cassie went right up to Sam and asked, ‘What can I do to get better?’ ” Rusniak shared. “You have to love that kind of attitude. I hear similar questions at practice. What I like to tell my players is, ‘Continue to have confidence in yourself.’ ”
Hersey received more lengthy throw-ins from junior Becca Caliendo. The midfielder owns swimmer-strong shoulders; she’s a breaststroker when her soccer cleats hibernate.
At least once Wednesday night, as Caliendo stood near a sideline and prepared to catapult the ball from above her head, a Fremd player yelled, “Treat it like a corner kick!”
The distance of one of her heaves seemed to travel the equivalent of a 747’s fuselage and created a scoring chance for the hosts in the 18th minute.
Some 16 minutes later Sena tapped a short corner kick to Caruso, who tapped it right back to Sena, who took the Huskies’ final shot on goal of the night.
Winning keeper Sam Gary secured it.
Fremd junior defender Shannon Moran diffused another dangerous sequence by engaging in a scrum and kicking the ball out of bounds with 27 ticks left in the contest.
“Our girls showed energy until the end,” Rusniak said. “They’re enjoying the opportunity to play this spring (after the pandemic scrubbed last spring’s season). They look at each opportunity to compete in a game as a gift. And our seniors are doing a good job of reminding our freshmen and sophomores that playing for your school, under the lights, is really special.”
Moving forward, Fremd hosts Rolling Meadows at 7 p.m. Friday; Hersey travels to Schaumburg on Friday (7:15 p.m. start) and hits the road again the next day for a 12:15 p.m. match versus Barrington, ranked no. 7 in the Chicagoland Soccer Top 25.
Footnotes:
You again? Yes. A Rusniak-coached team battled a Keller-coached team on the 5th of the month for a second-straight month Wednesday night in Arlington Heights. Keller’s boys varsity had nipped Rusniak’s male varsity squad 3-2 in overtime April 5. “I told Steve, before our game tonight, ‘It’s like you were here about a week ago.’” Hersey’s boys finished 9-2-0 and no. 20 in Chicagoland Soccer’s Final 50 rankings; Fremd ended up 9-3-0 and no. 28. … Fremd’s girls gave Keller a batch of cookies for his birthday after the victory. “We were thinking of buying, and then wearing, sombreros today,” Vikings senior midfielder Ashley Scesniak said. … Hersey’s Caliendo, on Rusniak and the team’s cohesion: “He likes to give targeted, positive feedback to each of us. What I love about our team is the family atmosphere we’ve created.”
Starting lineups
Fremd
GK Sam Gary
D Shannon Moran
D Palak Khera
D Bella Scesniak
M Abigail Iannuzzelli
M Ashley Scesniak
M Kylie Williams
M Kaitlyn Rodi
M Gemma Gillespie
F Lily Spotak
F Caeleigh Stone
Hersey
GK Alli Paulsen
D Natalie Suto
D Alison Beck
D Jane Stefaniak
D Cassie Caruso
M Avery Williams
M Norah Viers
M Becca Caliendo
F Maddy Kim
F Faith Sena
F Avery Larson
Chicagoland Soccer MVP of the Match: Ashley Scesniak, sr., MF, Fremd
Scoring summary
First half
No scoring
Second half
Fremd — A. Scesniak, PK, 42’