Rolling Meadows' 'best half'
enough to take down Prospect
Mustangs prevail 2-0 against game, but ailing Knights
By Bobby Narang
MT. PROSPECT — Rolling Meadows senior forward Joe Salemi wanted to erase any bad memories from Tuesday’s home loss to Elk Grove.
Two days seemed like a long time to wait.
Salemi said the Mustangs hurt themselves on many fronts in the 3-1 setback, especially with their Mid-Suburban League East Division title chances.
He also pointed out that Mustangs played out of sync against the Grenadiers -- which is the biggest cause for concern heading into the final two weeks of the regular-season.
“After Tuesday’s game, we walked into practice on Wednesday and nobody really said a word, and it was pretty silent,” Salemi said. “We had a nice team talk about what needs to change. The team was definitely a little down after Tuesday. We kind of sat down and talked about what we need to work on as a team, just to get the team morale back up along with the play.”
Salemi made a point to put his footprints all over Thursday’s game against Prospect. Nine minutes into the game, he kickstarted the Mustangs with the opener to lift the visitors to a 2-0 victory over the Knights in Mid-Suburban League East Division action at George Gattas Memorial Stadium.
Salemi, who has six goals this season, said the Mustangs (10-4-0, 4-3-0) played inspired soccer in the first half to quash any thoughts of a letdown against depleted Prospect (2-10-3, 1-4-1).
“That 40 minutes of soccer we played in the first half was probably the best we’ve played all year,” Salemi said. “It definitely felt good to kind of get the team chemistry back together. This is nice for the East Division.
“We’re looking forward to bouncing back for the playoffs. You could see we’re coming back up now. I’m proud of everyone. We played a great game.”
Rolling Meadows senior midfielder and captain Oscar Chlopek, who assisted Salemi's opening goal, mentioned Thursday’s victory was a good plus for the program. He said the Mustangs were hungry for a victory after losing to the Grenadiers on Senior Night.
“We started the season off better than where we are now, and we had a little hiccup on Tuesday,” Chlopek said. “We showed in the first half today what we can do, and hopefully we can build off that going into the playoffs.
“The Elk Grove game really brought us down. We were looking forward to it, because it was our Senior Night. We started off really well, but then couldn’t control the game anymore.”
Even though Prospect failed to score a goal for the eighth time this season, the match featured some positives. The Knights showed their moxey by battling without several key players, most notably junior forward Dimitriy Hutnyk who scored two goals in the Knights 2-0 win over Barrington on Sept. 9. He leads the team with five goals in 13 games played this season.
Rolling Meadows scored both of their goals in the first 24 minutes. Sophomore Alex Kociubinski completed the scoring off an assist from Jeremy Leigh.
On the opener, Chlopek said he saw an opening to set up Salemi.
“During the first half, I got a lot more time and was able to dribble and pick out my passes,” Chlopek said. “On the goal, I think I got the ball from Brian Diaz and dribbled a little, saw Joe making a diagonal run and fed it to him. I knew he could get around the goalie and score.”
Prospect coach Michael Andrews admitted he would’ve loved to have a full squad at his disposal against the talented Mustangs. He was proud of his players for playing a solid second half in which the Knights had possession for most of the 40 minutes.
They played with energy and made Rolling Meadows standout sophomore goalie Marceli Okonski work for the clean-sheet. Okonski recorded seven saves, including five in the second half.
“It’s only frustrating because we basically only took 10 minutes off during the game,” Andrews said. “If you look at the second half, if we play that way with that sense of urgency and intensity for the whole 80 minutes, it’s a different score. We earned countless corner kicks and put the pressure on them for the entire second half.
“I give (Rolling Meadows) some credit. They had some creativity up-top in the first half. That pulled apart our backs, and they were able to get a couple. The bottom line is if we play like we did in the second half, we can take on anybody and be successful. You can’t have the lapses against quality teams.
“We’ve also had an unlucky streak with sickness and injuries. We were still missing some guys. That’s been the case for several games, but that’s not a good excuse.
“It’s been an interesting season. We have a few tough conference games left. My expectations are to play every game without lapses. If we do that, we can do some damage in the postseason.”
While the Prospect marching band played in the adjacent parking lot throughout the game, the Knights’ suddenly started playing energized soccer when they attacked the north goal in the second half, which was the closest to band practice.
Massimo Mho started off the Knights’ second-half surge with a shot from 20 yards that Okonski handled easily.
In the 45th minute, Luis DeSantiago’s hard-hit ball was wide left. Okonski made a leaping save with 34:38 remaining, and added anther stop off a header less than two minutes later.
Prospect senior defender Sam Heintz said the second half was encouraging.
“When everyone is healthy, and we’re all energized and want to win and go to every ball winning 50/50s, you can see that momentum helps us, like it showed in the second half,” he said.
“We had some miscommunication on those two goals. We weren’t tracking back from their forwards making crosses. We came out with more energy in the second half.”
Prospect sophomore forward Matthew Fouch agreed with Heintz.
“I think we had a lot of flashes of good things in the second half,” Fouch said. “The second half we brought it all together. I think it was because of the energy we brought. We have to keep that energy for a whole game, then we can start winning right before the playoffs. If we start to come together, we can be a dangerous team.”
Chlopek, a three-year varsity player, Chlopek said Rolling Meadows wants to end its recent run of first round exits in the playoffs. They have home matches to continue their fine tuning against Lake Zurich on Saturday followed by a home game versus Barrington on Oct. 4.
“We have to control the game, like we did in the first half,” Chlopek said. “We have to keep our cool and made sure the ball is at our feet,, and we’re not just booting it forward. We’re a dangerous team when the ball is with us. We can control it and pick out our passes and eventually score the goals.”
Rolling Meadows coach Brett Olson said his coaching staff made a few key changes that sparked the early scoring.
“We had our best half of the season in the first half,” Olson said. “We made the adjustments I wanted to make after (Tuesday). Prospect came at us in the second half. They had more intensity, and we hit the panic button a little early.
“It wasn’t as pretty, but we earned it in the first half. I know (Prospect) is missing a couple of guys up-top, but the effort from their team is always there. We needed that first half.
“We moved Alex Chlopek into the midfield to kind of settle things down and allow Oscar to get forward. He’s usually playing more of a six role. It made a difference in the first half. We were checking to the ball and playing to the feet. Today, it showed. … We didn’t follow it up in the second half, but it’s hard to complain after the first half. I’m happy with the bounce-back effort.”
Starting lineups
Rolling Meadows
GK: Marceli Okonski
D: Kevin Lagunas
D: Matthew Winkelman
D: Antonio Caldena
D: Alex Chlopek
D: Alex Berg
MF: Oscar Chlopek
MF: Brian Diaz
MF: Yeray Alavez
F: Joe Salemi
F: Paco Ramirez
Prospect
GK: Ethan Erickson
D: Nicholas Casaletto
D: Daniel Barbaric
D: Sam Heintz
D: Tymek Czerviec
MF: Adam Toporkiewicz
MF: Luis De Santiago
MF: Chris Morys
MF: Carter Cremascoli
F: Massimo Mho
F: Matthew Fouch
Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match:
Joe Salemi, sr., F, Rolling Meadows
Scoring summary
First half
Rolling Meadows: Salemi (Chlopek), 9’
Rolling Meadows: Kociubinski (Leigh), 23’
Second half
No scoring
enough to take down Prospect
Mustangs prevail 2-0 against game, but ailing Knights
By Bobby Narang
MT. PROSPECT — Rolling Meadows senior forward Joe Salemi wanted to erase any bad memories from Tuesday’s home loss to Elk Grove.
Two days seemed like a long time to wait.
Salemi said the Mustangs hurt themselves on many fronts in the 3-1 setback, especially with their Mid-Suburban League East Division title chances.
He also pointed out that Mustangs played out of sync against the Grenadiers -- which is the biggest cause for concern heading into the final two weeks of the regular-season.
“After Tuesday’s game, we walked into practice on Wednesday and nobody really said a word, and it was pretty silent,” Salemi said. “We had a nice team talk about what needs to change. The team was definitely a little down after Tuesday. We kind of sat down and talked about what we need to work on as a team, just to get the team morale back up along with the play.”
Salemi made a point to put his footprints all over Thursday’s game against Prospect. Nine minutes into the game, he kickstarted the Mustangs with the opener to lift the visitors to a 2-0 victory over the Knights in Mid-Suburban League East Division action at George Gattas Memorial Stadium.
Salemi, who has six goals this season, said the Mustangs (10-4-0, 4-3-0) played inspired soccer in the first half to quash any thoughts of a letdown against depleted Prospect (2-10-3, 1-4-1).
“That 40 minutes of soccer we played in the first half was probably the best we’ve played all year,” Salemi said. “It definitely felt good to kind of get the team chemistry back together. This is nice for the East Division.
“We’re looking forward to bouncing back for the playoffs. You could see we’re coming back up now. I’m proud of everyone. We played a great game.”
Rolling Meadows senior midfielder and captain Oscar Chlopek, who assisted Salemi's opening goal, mentioned Thursday’s victory was a good plus for the program. He said the Mustangs were hungry for a victory after losing to the Grenadiers on Senior Night.
“We started the season off better than where we are now, and we had a little hiccup on Tuesday,” Chlopek said. “We showed in the first half today what we can do, and hopefully we can build off that going into the playoffs.
“The Elk Grove game really brought us down. We were looking forward to it, because it was our Senior Night. We started off really well, but then couldn’t control the game anymore.”
Even though Prospect failed to score a goal for the eighth time this season, the match featured some positives. The Knights showed their moxey by battling without several key players, most notably junior forward Dimitriy Hutnyk who scored two goals in the Knights 2-0 win over Barrington on Sept. 9. He leads the team with five goals in 13 games played this season.
Rolling Meadows scored both of their goals in the first 24 minutes. Sophomore Alex Kociubinski completed the scoring off an assist from Jeremy Leigh.
On the opener, Chlopek said he saw an opening to set up Salemi.
“During the first half, I got a lot more time and was able to dribble and pick out my passes,” Chlopek said. “On the goal, I think I got the ball from Brian Diaz and dribbled a little, saw Joe making a diagonal run and fed it to him. I knew he could get around the goalie and score.”
Prospect coach Michael Andrews admitted he would’ve loved to have a full squad at his disposal against the talented Mustangs. He was proud of his players for playing a solid second half in which the Knights had possession for most of the 40 minutes.
They played with energy and made Rolling Meadows standout sophomore goalie Marceli Okonski work for the clean-sheet. Okonski recorded seven saves, including five in the second half.
“It’s only frustrating because we basically only took 10 minutes off during the game,” Andrews said. “If you look at the second half, if we play that way with that sense of urgency and intensity for the whole 80 minutes, it’s a different score. We earned countless corner kicks and put the pressure on them for the entire second half.
“I give (Rolling Meadows) some credit. They had some creativity up-top in the first half. That pulled apart our backs, and they were able to get a couple. The bottom line is if we play like we did in the second half, we can take on anybody and be successful. You can’t have the lapses against quality teams.
“We’ve also had an unlucky streak with sickness and injuries. We were still missing some guys. That’s been the case for several games, but that’s not a good excuse.
“It’s been an interesting season. We have a few tough conference games left. My expectations are to play every game without lapses. If we do that, we can do some damage in the postseason.”
While the Prospect marching band played in the adjacent parking lot throughout the game, the Knights’ suddenly started playing energized soccer when they attacked the north goal in the second half, which was the closest to band practice.
Massimo Mho started off the Knights’ second-half surge with a shot from 20 yards that Okonski handled easily.
In the 45th minute, Luis DeSantiago’s hard-hit ball was wide left. Okonski made a leaping save with 34:38 remaining, and added anther stop off a header less than two minutes later.
Prospect senior defender Sam Heintz said the second half was encouraging.
“When everyone is healthy, and we’re all energized and want to win and go to every ball winning 50/50s, you can see that momentum helps us, like it showed in the second half,” he said.
“We had some miscommunication on those two goals. We weren’t tracking back from their forwards making crosses. We came out with more energy in the second half.”
Prospect sophomore forward Matthew Fouch agreed with Heintz.
“I think we had a lot of flashes of good things in the second half,” Fouch said. “The second half we brought it all together. I think it was because of the energy we brought. We have to keep that energy for a whole game, then we can start winning right before the playoffs. If we start to come together, we can be a dangerous team.”
Chlopek, a three-year varsity player, Chlopek said Rolling Meadows wants to end its recent run of first round exits in the playoffs. They have home matches to continue their fine tuning against Lake Zurich on Saturday followed by a home game versus Barrington on Oct. 4.
“We have to control the game, like we did in the first half,” Chlopek said. “We have to keep our cool and made sure the ball is at our feet,, and we’re not just booting it forward. We’re a dangerous team when the ball is with us. We can control it and pick out our passes and eventually score the goals.”
Rolling Meadows coach Brett Olson said his coaching staff made a few key changes that sparked the early scoring.
“We had our best half of the season in the first half,” Olson said. “We made the adjustments I wanted to make after (Tuesday). Prospect came at us in the second half. They had more intensity, and we hit the panic button a little early.
“It wasn’t as pretty, but we earned it in the first half. I know (Prospect) is missing a couple of guys up-top, but the effort from their team is always there. We needed that first half.
“We moved Alex Chlopek into the midfield to kind of settle things down and allow Oscar to get forward. He’s usually playing more of a six role. It made a difference in the first half. We were checking to the ball and playing to the feet. Today, it showed. … We didn’t follow it up in the second half, but it’s hard to complain after the first half. I’m happy with the bounce-back effort.”
Starting lineups
Rolling Meadows
GK: Marceli Okonski
D: Kevin Lagunas
D: Matthew Winkelman
D: Antonio Caldena
D: Alex Chlopek
D: Alex Berg
MF: Oscar Chlopek
MF: Brian Diaz
MF: Yeray Alavez
F: Joe Salemi
F: Paco Ramirez
Prospect
GK: Ethan Erickson
D: Nicholas Casaletto
D: Daniel Barbaric
D: Sam Heintz
D: Tymek Czerviec
MF: Adam Toporkiewicz
MF: Luis De Santiago
MF: Chris Morys
MF: Carter Cremascoli
F: Massimo Mho
F: Matthew Fouch
Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match:
Joe Salemi, sr., F, Rolling Meadows
Scoring summary
First half
Rolling Meadows: Salemi (Chlopek), 9’
Rolling Meadows: Kociubinski (Leigh), 23’
Second half
No scoring