Plainfield North bounces
back against Bartlett
Tigers prevail in wild PK session behind shootout sub GK Meyers
By Curt Herron
NAPERVILLE -- Two interesting story lines were at play when Plainfield North and Bartlett met Thursday in a Best of the West Tournament group match at Naperville Central's Memorial Stadium.
The Tigers hoped to return to their winning ways after yielding five goals against Sandburg in their tourney opener and first defeat of the season two days earlier. Bartlett looked to get a win for the first time since their season debut and end a three-loss stretch where they didn't score a goal against quality competition.
While the Hawks did end their scoring woes with a first half goal and then quickly answered an equalizer to lead for nearly half of the match, Plainfeld North tied things again in the late going to send it to penalties.
Then the Tigers prevailed for the win after a 7-6 tally in a wild shootout series that featured nine attempts per team.
An unlikely hero emerged for the Tigers in the penalties as junior Peyton Meyers took over duties in goal and halted the Hawks' initial and final tries.
"I was just getting warmed up and ready for the PKs and then just committing to a side by looking to where they lined up," said Meyers. "We'll savor the win for tonight and then be ready to go tomorrow. I like the connections and how we're all tighter and know each others' play styles."
In the shootout, the Tigers (4-1-0) made the initial attempt before Meyers halted the first try by Bartlett (1-4-0). After North's next effort went over the net, Bartlett evened things up and the two sides alternated through a 5-5 tie before both sides missed again. After each connected, Owen MacPhail scored for North while Meyers blocked the final try.
Converting penalties for North were Justin Williams, Brady Harwood, Dylan Gustafson, Timi Usikalu, Noah Horner, Colin Bailey and MacPhail while Bartlett received successful tries from Spencer Medendorp, Agustin Chavez, Giovanni Palid, Sean Cox, Diego Roballar-Cortez and Joel Perez.
After scoring 10 goals in their first four matches and at least two each time out, Plainfield North didn't get its first goal until the 56th minute when MacPhail sent a pass to Gavin Bell, who connected from close range.
Bartlett regained the advantage in the 57th minute when Cox found Gianluca Traversa, who connected from about 10 yards for a 2-1 advantage.
North responded: Gustafson was thwarted on two tries; and Williams was also denied by keeper Anthony Mellace. But in the 72nd minute, Gustafson sent a long pass to Ryan Bechtel, who drove toward the net to even things for a second time. The Tigers kept up the pressure for the rest of regulation but couldn't connect again.
"I thought that they were well-prepared and brought a lot of energy to begin the game," said Plainfield North coach Lukasz Majewski about Bartlett. "It was a little back-and-forth and a chance here and a chance there.
“When you capitalize on one, it changes the game and kind of flips everything. The name of the game is finishing at the end. You can keep possession, move the ball and create opportunities but you still have to put the ball in the back of the net. For us, that was not necessarily the case today.
"We're definitely still a work in progress. We're working on things, and sometimes it looks good and sometimes it's not so good. But the bottom line is that the boys come to training sessions, and we try to figure it out. We have a little bit of time to tinker with stuff and hopefully figure out not only the correct lineup but positioning and formations."
Beside getting the penalties off in good fashion for the Tigers, Williams was a threat throughout on restarts, particularly with his free kicks. Although his team had just two seniors to go along with eight juniors and one sophomore in their starting lineup, the junior midfielder and captain says that his team is experienced and likes their chemistry.
"It was good to win, especially after losing our last game and coming from behind was really big to stop the downward spiral and come back up," Williams said. "We practice PKs all of the time, because we expect something like this to happen, so we're ready when it happens.
"We had a lot of sophomores starting last year and all of them are juniors now and are starting. We have a good core group. We just want to keep that going and get better."
The Tigers came out strong to start the match, getting good scoring chances from Cooper Allen, Horner and Williams, but all were turned away by keeper Alex Brown and the Hawks responded with threats from Will Poulopoulos and Chavez that were stopped by goalie Kash Koslowski.
Bartlett grabbed its first lead in the 32nd minute when Cox drove downfield with the ball and fired in a shot to the opposite side of the net from about 15 yards. After Williams was thwarted on a long free kick, Traversa sent a corner kick inside to Joshua Taylor, whose header was hauled in on the last good threat of the opening half.
"This was one of our best games, other than McHenry," said Cox, a senior midfielder and captain. "Despite our loss, we really came out as a team. In the first half we dominated, but in the second half we started getting a little fatigued. We came out here saying that we needed to win this. After our losing streak, we thought this was the time.
"We definitely came out a lot stronger, and we have to play more soccer like this because we found the back of the net. I like our attitude and things are looking up. We're getting better and improving every day as we're getting the problems worked out."
While he obviously would have liked to have the match settled in regulation and not on penalties, Hawks coach Vince Revak was pleased to see his squad score first and later quickly respond to an equalizer, lead for nearly half of the match and also put themselves in a good position to claim a win over a quality team.
"We kind of hit a little rough patch with inconsistency ever since that 3-0 win at McHenry," Revak said. "We're just trying to figure out how we're going to work out with a formation and with new guys playing together. We hit a little bit of a snag, but I'm real proud of their efforts tonight. Every single one of them absolutely worked to the bone tonight.
"We gave up a goal, because we were kind of sleeping on a ball that we thought was out of bounds. That's frustrating and can destroy you. But they picked themselves back up, and we got the go-ahead. Unfortunately we couldn't hold on to it. But it's good that we're showing a little bit of resiliency."
Starting lineups
Plainfield North
G - Kash Koslowski
D - Brady Harwood
D - Noah Horner
D - Aidan Smith
D - Mathew Hipolito
M - Ryan Bechtel
M - Sean Elster
M - Justin Williams
M - Luis Gonzalez
F - Timi Usikalu
F - Cooper Allen
Bartlett
G - Alex Brown
D - Andrew Nava
D - Trey Plunkett
D - Spencer Medendorp
D - Andy Perez
M - Sean Cox
M - Giovanni Palid
M - Will Poulopoulos
M - Diego Roballar-Cortez
F - Oscar Medina
F - Agustin Chavez
Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match”
Peyton Meyers, jr., GK, Plainfield North
Scoring summary
First half
B - Sean Cox, 32
Second half
PN - Gavin Bell (Owen MacPhail), 56
B - Gianluca Traversa (Sean Cox), 57
PN - Ryan Bechtel (Dylan Gustafson), 73
Shootout (penalties made)
PN: Justin Williams (1-0), Brady Harwood (2-1), Dylan Gustafson (3-2), Timi Usikalu (4-3), Noah Horner (5-4), Colin Bailey (6-5), Owen MacPhail (7-6)
B: Spencer Medendorp (1-1), Agustin Chavez (2-2), Giovanni Palid (3-3), Sean Cox (4-4), Diego Roballar-Cortez (5-5), Joel Perez (6-6)
back against Bartlett
Tigers prevail in wild PK session behind shootout sub GK Meyers
By Curt Herron
NAPERVILLE -- Two interesting story lines were at play when Plainfield North and Bartlett met Thursday in a Best of the West Tournament group match at Naperville Central's Memorial Stadium.
The Tigers hoped to return to their winning ways after yielding five goals against Sandburg in their tourney opener and first defeat of the season two days earlier. Bartlett looked to get a win for the first time since their season debut and end a three-loss stretch where they didn't score a goal against quality competition.
While the Hawks did end their scoring woes with a first half goal and then quickly answered an equalizer to lead for nearly half of the match, Plainfeld North tied things again in the late going to send it to penalties.
Then the Tigers prevailed for the win after a 7-6 tally in a wild shootout series that featured nine attempts per team.
An unlikely hero emerged for the Tigers in the penalties as junior Peyton Meyers took over duties in goal and halted the Hawks' initial and final tries.
"I was just getting warmed up and ready for the PKs and then just committing to a side by looking to where they lined up," said Meyers. "We'll savor the win for tonight and then be ready to go tomorrow. I like the connections and how we're all tighter and know each others' play styles."
In the shootout, the Tigers (4-1-0) made the initial attempt before Meyers halted the first try by Bartlett (1-4-0). After North's next effort went over the net, Bartlett evened things up and the two sides alternated through a 5-5 tie before both sides missed again. After each connected, Owen MacPhail scored for North while Meyers blocked the final try.
Converting penalties for North were Justin Williams, Brady Harwood, Dylan Gustafson, Timi Usikalu, Noah Horner, Colin Bailey and MacPhail while Bartlett received successful tries from Spencer Medendorp, Agustin Chavez, Giovanni Palid, Sean Cox, Diego Roballar-Cortez and Joel Perez.
After scoring 10 goals in their first four matches and at least two each time out, Plainfield North didn't get its first goal until the 56th minute when MacPhail sent a pass to Gavin Bell, who connected from close range.
Bartlett regained the advantage in the 57th minute when Cox found Gianluca Traversa, who connected from about 10 yards for a 2-1 advantage.
North responded: Gustafson was thwarted on two tries; and Williams was also denied by keeper Anthony Mellace. But in the 72nd minute, Gustafson sent a long pass to Ryan Bechtel, who drove toward the net to even things for a second time. The Tigers kept up the pressure for the rest of regulation but couldn't connect again.
"I thought that they were well-prepared and brought a lot of energy to begin the game," said Plainfield North coach Lukasz Majewski about Bartlett. "It was a little back-and-forth and a chance here and a chance there.
“When you capitalize on one, it changes the game and kind of flips everything. The name of the game is finishing at the end. You can keep possession, move the ball and create opportunities but you still have to put the ball in the back of the net. For us, that was not necessarily the case today.
"We're definitely still a work in progress. We're working on things, and sometimes it looks good and sometimes it's not so good. But the bottom line is that the boys come to training sessions, and we try to figure it out. We have a little bit of time to tinker with stuff and hopefully figure out not only the correct lineup but positioning and formations."
Beside getting the penalties off in good fashion for the Tigers, Williams was a threat throughout on restarts, particularly with his free kicks. Although his team had just two seniors to go along with eight juniors and one sophomore in their starting lineup, the junior midfielder and captain says that his team is experienced and likes their chemistry.
"It was good to win, especially after losing our last game and coming from behind was really big to stop the downward spiral and come back up," Williams said. "We practice PKs all of the time, because we expect something like this to happen, so we're ready when it happens.
"We had a lot of sophomores starting last year and all of them are juniors now and are starting. We have a good core group. We just want to keep that going and get better."
The Tigers came out strong to start the match, getting good scoring chances from Cooper Allen, Horner and Williams, but all were turned away by keeper Alex Brown and the Hawks responded with threats from Will Poulopoulos and Chavez that were stopped by goalie Kash Koslowski.
Bartlett grabbed its first lead in the 32nd minute when Cox drove downfield with the ball and fired in a shot to the opposite side of the net from about 15 yards. After Williams was thwarted on a long free kick, Traversa sent a corner kick inside to Joshua Taylor, whose header was hauled in on the last good threat of the opening half.
"This was one of our best games, other than McHenry," said Cox, a senior midfielder and captain. "Despite our loss, we really came out as a team. In the first half we dominated, but in the second half we started getting a little fatigued. We came out here saying that we needed to win this. After our losing streak, we thought this was the time.
"We definitely came out a lot stronger, and we have to play more soccer like this because we found the back of the net. I like our attitude and things are looking up. We're getting better and improving every day as we're getting the problems worked out."
While he obviously would have liked to have the match settled in regulation and not on penalties, Hawks coach Vince Revak was pleased to see his squad score first and later quickly respond to an equalizer, lead for nearly half of the match and also put themselves in a good position to claim a win over a quality team.
"We kind of hit a little rough patch with inconsistency ever since that 3-0 win at McHenry," Revak said. "We're just trying to figure out how we're going to work out with a formation and with new guys playing together. We hit a little bit of a snag, but I'm real proud of their efforts tonight. Every single one of them absolutely worked to the bone tonight.
"We gave up a goal, because we were kind of sleeping on a ball that we thought was out of bounds. That's frustrating and can destroy you. But they picked themselves back up, and we got the go-ahead. Unfortunately we couldn't hold on to it. But it's good that we're showing a little bit of resiliency."
Starting lineups
Plainfield North
G - Kash Koslowski
D - Brady Harwood
D - Noah Horner
D - Aidan Smith
D - Mathew Hipolito
M - Ryan Bechtel
M - Sean Elster
M - Justin Williams
M - Luis Gonzalez
F - Timi Usikalu
F - Cooper Allen
Bartlett
G - Alex Brown
D - Andrew Nava
D - Trey Plunkett
D - Spencer Medendorp
D - Andy Perez
M - Sean Cox
M - Giovanni Palid
M - Will Poulopoulos
M - Diego Roballar-Cortez
F - Oscar Medina
F - Agustin Chavez
Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match”
Peyton Meyers, jr., GK, Plainfield North
Scoring summary
First half
B - Sean Cox, 32
Second half
PN - Gavin Bell (Owen MacPhail), 56
B - Gianluca Traversa (Sean Cox), 57
PN - Ryan Bechtel (Dylan Gustafson), 73
Shootout (penalties made)
PN: Justin Williams (1-0), Brady Harwood (2-1), Dylan Gustafson (3-2), Timi Usikalu (4-3), Noah Horner (5-4), Colin Bailey (6-5), Owen MacPhail (7-6)
B: Spencer Medendorp (1-1), Agustin Chavez (2-2), Giovanni Palid (3-3), Sean Cox (4-4), Diego Roballar-Cortez (5-5), Joel Perez (6-6)