Leading MSL East, Prospect drops Hersey
Knights face a conference "crucible" next week

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By Dan Santaromita

Prospect is piling up wins and showing the confidence of a top tier side.

The Knights beat always defensively tough Hersey 2-0 in a Mid Suburban League East match in Mt. Prospect.

An early goal from Bill Cooney got Prospect going and the Knights held off the pesky Huskies.

“We know every time we play Hersey that we’re going to see a disciplined defensive effort,” Prospect coach Kurt Trenkle said. “We knew that they would put numbers behind the ball and make us work to get the ball in. They certainly did that.”

The Huskies maintained their shape despite giving up Cooney’s goal in the sixth minute. Brayhan Nunez crossed into the box and Cooney redirected the ball into the net on his first touch.

The rest of the half played into Hersey’s hands. Prospect seemed content with the lead and allowed Hersey to get some quality chances to equalize.

“When they sit so many back, you’re looking to score one or two a game,” Prospect forward Richard Lenke said. “Once we put that early one in we were thinking we got this. We loosened up a bit and tried to possess the ball more and maybe not be pushing so hard. I think we got a little too much of that, but we really cleaned it up in the second half.”

Hersey’s best chance forced Knights’ goalkeeper Brad Reibel (4 saves) to make the save of the match. A Huskies’ free kick created an open shot in front of Reibel’s goal, but he made a diving save and scrambled to the loose ball before the Hersey forwards could tap in the rebound.

“We were concerned that they were going to get a counterattack or a set piece and you could see that once they got the ball into our third that they could do good things with it,” Trenkle said. “They could get crosses and get people under them and anything can happen when it’s one-nil.”

Prospect took the play to Hersey in the second half and eventually sealed the win with a Lenke goal in the 72nd minute.

Nunez maintained the shutout with a header to clear a shot from a corner in the final seconds. It was Prospect’s eighth shutout of the year.

Trenkle said the Knights are succeeding because of team defense and creative forwards up top.

“The defense is playing well and credit Brad and Jeff Geldmeyer for playing well in the nets, too,” senior defender Mike Eggert said. “They’ve had some tough forwards to deal with themselves. It’s been a good ride so far. Hopefully we can keep it up.”

The Knights (8-1-1, 4-1) lead the MSL East by three points, but have tough games ahead of them. Prospect takes on a ranked Crystal Lake South side on Saturday and also has matches against winning MSL sides Barrington, Elk Grove and Fremd in the next week and a half.

“These next several days are our season in a crucible,” Trenkle said. “With tonight and next week that’s fifteen points on the line and we need to come out of there with a majority of those points if we want to make sure we can host the (MSL) Cup here.”

Defender Mike Eggert thinks the team is playing well enough to get through the stretch.

“It’s definitely going to be a tough week,” he said. “With this conference anything can happen because Meadows beat Fremd. We just got to play our hardest every game. We should come out on top. I don’t want to be cocky or anything, but if we play consistently well the whole time I think we can easily get through most of that.”

That kind of confidence may not have been rampant around the Prospect team before the season started, but it’s hard to argue with the results.

Eggert said he didn’t expect the team to be this good, especially at this stage of the season.

“At the beginning of summer we had tryouts and I don’t think anyone thought we’d be this good,” the senior captain said. “But after such a hot start I think now it’s definitely understandable from how we’ve been playing. It hasn’t surprised us too much, but maybe some other people.”