Falcons tie Glenbard North in a wild one

By Gary Larsen

It could have been a painful bout of déjà vu for Wheaton North on Thursday.

Five days after giving up a 3-0 lead in an eventual 4-3 loss to Lake Park, the Falcons held leads of 2-1 and 3-2, only to see Glenbard North fight back to tie the game both times in a wild DVC contest in Carol Stream.

That’s where the game settled for good – a 3-3 tie after two mandatory overtime periods – and there were more positives than negatives for Wheaton North on the day.

“It’s disappointing that we couldn’t finish on it but we know where we need to work, and we’ll keep working on it,” Falcons coach Bryce Cann said. “We put three in and we showed pretty good character tonight. We went for the win. We didn’t hang back. After the second one went in and (Glenbard North) tied it, we put another one back in right away.”

Falcons’ senior defender Zac Gudanik is one of a quartet of captains on this year’s squad at Wheaton North, and he’s well aware of how his team’s propensity to give up goals this year flies in the face of his program’s tradition of rock-solid defensive play.

“We were pretty mad that we gave up that 3-0 lead on Saturday,” Gudanik said. “Some of our players didn’t step up when they needed to, so we’re just trying to push them hard in practice. But we’re coming together and getting to know each other on the field.”

The Falcons also showed fight in a comeback of their own against the Panthers.

Glenbard North (2-2-3, 0-1-1) took a 1-0 lead on Kevin Greiner’s first-half goal, but Wheaton North (1-5-1, 0-0-1) struck twice in the second half to take a 2-1 lead.

In doing so, the Falcons turned the tables on a bad habit they’ve been fighting this year. “What we talked about at halftime was that we wanted to make sure we didn’t go down 2-0,” Cann said. “We’ve given up four goals in the first five minutes of the second half this year.

Instead, we scored in the first five (minutes) and that’s the first time we’ve done that, and it energized the guys. And that first goal was just a workhorse goal from Richert, a classic blue-collar, let’s-go-to-work goal.”

Three minutes into the second half, Wheaton North’s Jordan Richert scored from 12 yards out, on a play set up by an Andrew Carlburg corner kick. The Falcons fired multiple shots on net inside the box, and after a goal-line save by Greiner, Richert located the ball and buried it to tie the game.

Nearly lost in the game’s madness was a beautiful feed from Carlburg to Jacques Ntahoturi that gave Wheaton North the lead. With a defender on his hip, Carlburg dribbled diagonally in the box from the middle towards the post before back-heeling the ball to space, where Ntahoturi had plenty of time to tee it up.

“They created an opportunity and then used two fantastic skill plays to finish,” Cann said of the goal. “That was a beautiful play and it happens because you create the opportunity.”

Ntahoturi’s shot tore inside the near post in the 59th minute to give Wheaton North a 2-1 lead.

The Falcons’ lead held to the 73rd minute, when a goal by Glenbard North’s Ryan Scott kicked off a wild final 7 minutes. Scott located a loose ball after a throw-in and scored from 14 yards out to tie the game at 2-2.

Sam Klatt continued to establish himself as one of Wheaton North’s most viable scoring threats three minutes later. Klatt chased down a long lead pass from Gudanik and fired on net in the 76th minute.

Klatt’s shot hit the crossbar and shot back out. The junior dove forward and buried a head shot that gave his side a 3-2 lead with only four minutes left to play.

Unfortunately for the Falcons, a Glenbard North corner kick got loose in the Falcons’ box one minute later, and Eric Dailly sent it home off the post to finish the night’s scoring. Two scoreless, 10-minute overtime periods ensued per DVC rules before the tie was declared.

“They took advantage of defensive breakdowns. We didn’t get clears, we didn’t win the first fifty-fifty balls, and made a couple of poor decisions,” Cann said.

“But Zac Gudanik continues to be solid in back, and our outside back play was better today. I thought Gareth Phillips and Zack Andor did a real good job of stepping up.”

Gudanik will continue to lead the boys in back in front of keeper Nick Barry.

“Some of us just need to go through tackles. We’re toe-poking and not going in hard enough,” Gudanik said. “And then after we score we get excited but then we let down. That has to stop.”

“We’ve got some things to clean up on the back line,” Cann said. “But I thought Jacques (Ntahoturi) and Sammy (Klatt) did a great job up top and through the midfield Jordan Richert is just a fantastic player to have out there. He’s all over the place.”

Thursday’s game was typical of the heated battles prominent in the DVC.
 
“When you’re playing against a hard-nosed, smash-mouth type team – which Glenbard North and really everybody in the DVC is – you’ve got to be ready for that. There’s skill on the field but if you’re not willing to take one on the chin and keep playing, you’re not going to last long in this league,” Cann said.