Redwings edged in BOTW title match by Redhawks

By Matt Le Cren

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As the game entered the final minute, even Naperville Central coach Troy Adams didn’t believe his team would be able to score and avoid overtime.

Silly him.

Continuing to pad his burgeoning resume of fantastic feats, Naperville Central striker Pat Flynn scored a dramatic goal with 39 seconds remaining to give the host Redhawks a 1-0 win over Benet in the championship game of the Best of the West Tournament Saturday night.

“Sadly enough, my faith was not that great because I had already started making plans on a couple switches for the overtime,” Adams said. “I was like, ‘you get warmed up because when we start the overtime we’re going to do this instead.’ All of a sudden, Pat found a way. It was a great strike.”

It was just the latest in a series of notable goals for Flynn. It was the second time the senior has won a game with a last-minute goal; he knocked off Batavia in such fashion in last year’s sectional semifinals.

This goal, his ninth of the season and fifth straight game-winner, was set up by junior Sam Reskala, who sent a short pass to a streaking Flynn just outside the top of the circle.

Flynn quickly unleashed a 23-yard bullet that skimmed the ground and wound up just inside the right post, about a foot away from the fingers of Benet goalie Kyle Dal Santo.

“It was a tight game and I was happy I finally got it in the net,” Flynn said. “They played strong in the back all game and I was lucky to finally get one through.

“Sam Reskala cut it and he found me making the run in the middle and Coach has been telling us to shoot it low, shoot on target and I did both there and I was lucky it got in. Kyle Dal Santo is a very good goalie and I was lucky it went in.”

While Flynn credited luck for the goal, the fact is he has a knack for coming through in the clutch and being able to shoot where he aims it.

“We’ve talked a lot about finishing and making sure it’s low,” Adams said. “For some reason we all like to hit that upper 90 when the lower 90 is actually much harder to save for the goalie.

“Goalies have a harder time getting down than they do to get up for a ball, so we talked a lot about trying to finish low.”

Flynn heeded the advice.

“I was aiming far post,” he said. “There was a lot of traffic so I was trying to go far post and low and keep it away from the goalie.”

While Reskala and Jack Patrick have also done damage offensively, Flynn is the player the Redhawks (6-0) rely on to score when the going gets tough. That was the case when Reskala had the ball as the clock was winding down.

“I just held it and Pat was the one open and he called for the ball so I just passed it to him,” Reskala said.

“I’m pretty confident in Pat. Flynn is like one of those people who doesn’t give up, he just works through it and he’s always clutch in the end. He always carries the team on his back.

“It feels really good when you’re in a tense spot, when we’re down to two minutes left and it’s one of the only things that crosses our minds, get it to Flynn and he’ll score.”

Flynn scored three goals on the day. He and Patrick both tallied twice in a 4-1 win over Waubonsie Valley, but the Redhawks found the going tough against a stout Benet defense, which played well in front of Dal Santo, who finished with five saves.

“It was frustrating up top,” Flynn said. “We couldn’t really break through. They have a strong defense back there. James Colletti played really well in the air and so it got really tiring.

“There was a lot of kick ball. There were 10-minute stretches where the ball would go back forth and barely touch the ground and it was just tiring.”

In the end, Flynn and his teammates were able to relish the first tournament title in his four-year varsity career. It was the Redhawks’ first Best of the West championship since 2008.

“It feels great,” Flynn said. “This was one of the three things we wanted to win. We wanted to win this one, win DVC and win state. It’s good to get this one.”

“It means a lot to us,” Reskala said. “Last year we weren’t considered one of the good teams at the start. I’ve never won a Best of the West tournament.”

For Benet, which managed only five shots, the loss was a disappointing end to a great run through the tournament that saw them beat Naperville North 2-1 on penalty kicks earlier in the day.

It was the first time in many years the Redwings (4-1-1) had beaten Naperville North and only the second time they had reached the tournament final, the last being in 2006.

“I’m super excited for the program and for the boys,” Benet coach Sean Wesley said. “It’s a step for us to make it to the finals of the Best of the West, so I think we feel like we’re moving in the right direction.

“We played good soccer tonight. I thought it was an evenly-matched game and I really thought it came down to confidence. You can tell they’ve been here before, you can tell they expect to be here and this was something a little new for our guys.

“[The Redhawks] took advantage. They put shots on frame and we just didn’t do that. We didn’t put any on frame except one.”

That one came two minutes into the second half and resulted in Benet’s only true scoring chance. Dal Santo launched a long punt into the attack zone and Brad Bozych got to it while running stride-for-stride with a defender.

Bozych launched a hard shot from 25 yards out, but Redhawks goalie Mike Pavliga punched the ball up in the air and caught it.

After that, the Redhawks slowly but surely started to win the possession battle and the ball started spending more time in the Benet end of the field.

“I think it’s been a long day and the fatigue really set in and where we really wanted to apply pressure, we didn’t apply pressure,” Wesley said. “We sat back and we gave them a few too many today and they were due.

“In the big moment they found a way to put something on frame and Kyle kept us in it for a long time. In the big moment for us in the box, we threatened the box a lot but really put only one aggressive shot on goal.

“It’s going to be hard to win a game when you test their goalie only once. We need to be dangerous and we just didn’t do that enough tonight.”

Even so, Wesley was able to depart with a smile on his face.

“[It is] obviously disappointing,” Wesley said. “It probably went the way that it was supposed to but we gave ourselves a chance to win and that’s all that we really ask.”