Plainfield Central set pieces doom Spartans

By Gary Larsen

It was good to have Jon Mifsud back on the field, and St. Francis showed fight chasing a big deficit, but the answer came quickly when Spartans coach Kristin Keigley was asked how her squad might have better defended set pieces against Plainfield Central on Monday.

“Don’t give them a set piece,” Keigley said. “In all honesty, that’s what it is. And you can’t just kick it up the field or they’ll send it right back at you. You have to be able to carry it up the field, and that’s the best way to defend against it.”

“We usually have more activity working it up the field, but today it just wasn’t happening.”

The Wildcats won 5-2 over St. Francis in opening-round play of this year’s St. Charles East tournament. Central led 3-1 at halftime, with two of those goals set up by the throw-ins of Jesse Rodriguez.

“The long throws killed us today. They had two or three guys that just kept winning them,” the Spartans’ Patrick Holman said. “Usually teams correct that error but today we just couldn’t find a way to do it. Communication was definitely lacking today.”

The Wildcats scored early in the run of play, and St. Francis (4-6) tied the game mid-way through the first half when Mifsud sent a ball forward and Holman pressured Central’s back line.

“The defender flicked it back and I guess he thought he had another defender back,” Holman said. “I just played the mistake, like coach Keigley always says, and I beat the keeper and I put it away.”

Disaster struck twice late in the first half for the Spartans, with Josh Rosenbaum and Giuliano Dinardo scoring at point-blank range off of Rodriguez throws.

“Definitely their size,” the Spartans Wes Dorman said of the main problem the Wildcats posed. “(Matt) Bonner was on (Tyler Gill) and he did as much as he possibly could. Bonner’s a pretty tall kid, too, but (Gill) is just huge.”

Central scored twice more by the 60-minute mark to take a 5-1 lead. And while the Spartans answered with increased energy in the attack, it was energy they wished they’d used from the outset.

“It has happened a few times now. As Drew (Mascari) said, it’s like we need a reason to play hard at some points in the game, when it should be there from the get-go,” Holman said. “You can’t wait for a reason.”

“Our energy has been up and down. We got off this season to a slow start, then the energy went up and we won four games, and now we’ve lost a few. So hopefully we’ll bring it back up for Wednesday’s game.”

St. Francis takes on Lockport in second-round action at St. Charles East on Wednesday. Keigley was Lockport’s head coach before taking the job at St. Francis prior to this season.

Mifsud scored his first goal of the year in his first game of the year, late in the second half. From the right side, Spartans outside midfielder Michael Vale served a diagonal ball towards the goalmouth, where Mifsud beat a charging goalkeeper to it and headed it over the line.

Mifsud’s return should only help the Spartans’ attack going forward.

“He’s a really good player and we’ve been missing him in the middle of the field,” Holman said. “This is the first game all year that we’ve all been healthy. Now we need time to mesh together.”

Keigley was also happy to see Mifsud suited up on Monday after rehabbing a knee.

 “He is (dangerous). He’s back to playing now, and he was dying because the doctor kept telling him ‘one more week, one more week’,” Keigley said. “He has good skill, confidence holding the ball and being an inside mid. He knows when to get rid of the ball and when to hang onto the ball.”

Keigley applauded a few stellar performances put in by defender T.J. Kliebhan recently, and she liked what she saw from Holman on Monday.

“Patrick played well,” Keigley said. “We call him ‘coach’ because he is honestly one of the smartest soccer brains on the team. He can pick out things during a game that need to be adjusted, on the fly, and he will be a good coach when he gets older.”

“The frustrating thing today is that (Plainfield Central) is beatable. They excelled with what they’re good at, and capitalized on the things that they excel at, but you can still beat them. There were things we could have done to beat them that we just didn’t do.”