Cougars unable to find the net in loss to Knights

By Dan Santaromita

Conant coach Jason Franco had one word to explain why his team lost to Prospect on Tuesday: finishing.

The Cougars conceded an early goal and couldn't convert quality chances in the second half to level things up in a 1-0 loss to the Knights in Mid Suburban League play in Hoffman Estates.

"We scored six against Wheeling last Tuesday and I thought 'Ok here we go, we're finding out stride,'" Franco said.

“We scored two against Meadows, which was pretty good. Then we get five, six good chances and we can't find the back of the net. You've got to do that to beat a good team."

Richard Lenke flicked the ball to Patryk Ruta, who finished from close for the goal in the seventh minute.

"I'm a little disappointed that they didn't keep the intensity up after we got the goal. I was kind of expecting they would because that's what we did in the past, but all in all I think we played a pretty solid game," Prospect coach Kurt Trenkle said.

"We possessed the ball really well in the opening ten minutes. I thought we moved it very, very well."

After Prospect's strong start, there were few quality chances the rest of the first half and possession was mostly even.

"The first half, especially the first ten minutes, we came out a little bit slow," Franco said. "That's been our Achilles heel the last couple games.

"I thought it was pretty even after that. I thought it deserved to be maybe a tie or maybe even get us the result."

The Knights (10-4-2, 6-4) sat back more in the second half and created a few near-breakaway opportunities via long balls.

Lenke, Bill Cooney and Alex Schnepf all caused problems for the Cougar defense and Brayhan Nunez had a chance that Trenkle says he should have put away.

Meanwhile, Conant (9-5-1, 6-4) had numerous set pieces that with a generous bounce could have leveled the match.

Brad Reibel (14 saves) once again saved the day for the Knights with a few fantastic saves towards the end of the match.

"We kind of let them in with some of those set pieces we were giving in the final third," Trenkle said. "They send a lot of people into the box and anything can happen.

"Defensively I thought we were pretty good. Brad once again big saves at the end. That's a daily thing."

A Zach Conrad free kick was sent to the far post and headed hard at Reibel who stood his ground well.

With less than 10 minutes remaining, Reibel made a double save on Cougars forward Shivam Patel.

Although Patel was a threat in the final third all game, he couldn't get one in the back of the net.

"Goalie stood on his head a little bit," Franco said. "I think the ball hit him more than he hit it, but sometimes that's what you need to win games like this.

"Credit to them, they played well, they're talented and they found enough to break us down and that was the difference today."

On the other end, Bobby Potratz made six saves in goal for the Cougars and was pressured every time he received a back pass from one of his defenders.

Franco was frustrated with the team's lack of finishing, but they were also missing a few players. Joe Bosco, who was serving a red card suspension, was among them.

"I think we played actually very well," Conant midfielder Dustin Garland said. "It was just one unlucky break that broke us down.

"I thought we played well in the second half, just couldn't get our chances up in the air, just couldn't score."

Garland said the team is doing well except for communication and finishing.

The Cougars have now lost two in a row and are out of the race in the MSL West. Franco said the reason for the results was primarily the quality of the competition.

"We're playing some good teams now," he said. "We're playing Palatine on Thursday and we got Neuqua next week so it's going to be a matter of how tough we are mentally.

"We've got to realize that we're not going to play teams like this everyday, but we're going to need to beat teams like this to get out of our regional."