Barrington tops Rolling Meadows in MSL crossover
Broncos finish 9-2 in conference play

By Gary Larsen

If a throng of fans wearing red shows up on Friday to cheer for Hersey over Fremd, they might be Barrington players.

Barrington’s 2-0 win over Rolling Meadows – while not the prettiest win for the Broncos by a long shot – ensured them a piece of the MSL West this season.

The remaining math of the season for the Broncos is simple: should Hersey top Fremd, the West belongs to the Broncos alone, and they’ll play in this year’s MSL Cup against East champion Elk Grove.

But if Fremd wins, the Vikings advance to the conference title game by virtue of a 2-1 win over Barrington on Sept. 15.

“It would be nice to play (for the MSL Cup), but considering the season we had last year, we have to be happy,” Broncos assistant coach Rob Demano said. “We’re 12-2 in our last 14 games.

“But it’s hard to be completely happy after a second half like that.”

Demano was bemoaning the Broncos’ second half of play against a scrappy Rolling Meadows squad, during which Barrington struggled to play quality soccer.

Barrington (12-6-2, 9-2) grabbed a 1-0 lead 37 minutes in, when David Pacheco fired from 20-plus yards out and the shot deflected off of teammate Lasse Haataja and flew inside the post.

“We were fortunate to get that goal in that spot, but that’s the game of soccer,” Demano said.

For the game’s first 20 minutes, Barrington kept steady pressure on in its final third.

“They did a real good job of finding their target player and coming at us with speed,” Rolling Meadows coach Peter Mikulak said of Barrington. “Their midfielders flat-out ran past ours and that’s how they were creating chances.”

The second half was a different animal altogether for Barrington. Rolling Meadows has used guts and heart this year, and the Mustangs knocked off a pair of big dogs in the West this year, in Fremd and Conant.

The Mustangs used those guts and that heart throughout the second half, and it threw Barrington for a loop.

“We were able to play much better than we were in the first half,” Mikulak said. “Our energy was better, our intensity was better. In the first half we lost our composure a little bit, and never really found a rhythm.”

There are momentum swings in every sport, but composure swings? That’s what seemed to happen in the second half, with Rolling Meadows gaining it and Barrington losing it.

“If you don’t have composure at key points in the game, you’re going to give up a goal,” Demano said. “If we do that in two weeks, that’s our season. We defended for forty minutes tonight and a lot of that had to do with a lack of composure.”

Despite the Mustangs having the run of play throughout the second half, they were unable to finish on a goal. Pushing numbers forward down the stretch, they fell victim to a Barrington counter and a Taylor Williams goal in the game’s final minute.

“There’s some positive coming out of the game. It was good to see (Williams) get a goal, even if it came late when they were pushing up,” Demano said. “And Max (Mohr) came up with a huge block at the end of the game. His feistiness in back has been big for us.”

Rolling Meadows goalkeeper Carter Gibson made a quality save on a Grant McAndrew shot at 51 minutes, and then stuffed a Reid Strain attempt at the post one minute later.

 “Carter has done a very good job of coming off his line. We’ve tended to give up too many close chances, and he has made some big saves for us,” said Mikulak, who also applauded the play of Declan Delaney, Steven Kay, and Kyle Kreski on the night.