Knights stay unbeaten with home win over CL South



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By Dan Santaromita

Non-conference games at this time of year are about getting everyone playing time and trying some new things. So in a seven-goal match Prospect and Crystal Lake South learned a lot about themselves.

In a match that featured four goals in the first nine minutes, the host Knights came out on top 4-3. Prospect’s Bill Cooney (2 goals) and Richard Lenke (1 goal, 2 assists) and the Gators’ Charlie Oliver (3 goals) filled up the stat sheet in a day with plenty of offensive production.

Lenke opened the scoring in the second minute following a service from Ihor Lehkiv. Lenke drilled a shot to the upper 90, but the lead was short lived.

Before Prospect could let the lead sink in, South freshman Orlando Tapia took a shot that was blocked by a Knights’ defender. Oliver was in the right spot at the right time to collect the loose ball and equalize inside the box.

The Knights jumped ahead again, this time waiting all of three minutes to do so. Stefano Dolomas fed Cooney the ball at the edge of the 18 where he was able to slot a low shot into the corner of the net.

As if that wasn’t a frantic enough start, Oliver added a spectacular individual goal to level things again. The senior showed great ball control to weave through a pair of defenders and had the finish to go with it.

Both offenses finally took a breath after the 2-2 start, but neither coach would have minded a duller beginning to the match.

“One of the things that I was stressing to them was that they have a fantastic player up top that we all know and if we can deny him the ball then that’s the first part of the battle,” Prospect coach Kurt Trenkle said. “I think in the first half in that first twenty minutes we just were losing the battle in the central third so they were able to feed it to him. I think we cleaned that up better in the second part of that first half.”

“I knew they had a high powered offense, they’re the real deal for sure,” Crystal Lake South coach Brian Allen said. “I told my backline you’re going to have to be ready for that. They exposed some of our weaknesses in the back, made the most of their chances. Really proud with how we responded though, especially Charlie today obviously. He manned up and said I’m going to keep us in the game as best that we could. To come back twice, to get back even twice was pretty impressive.”

The match seemed to slow a bit after both defenses adjusted and settled in, but Prospect took its third lead of the match a few minutes before the break. Lenke reversed the field to Matt Wruskyj near the box. Wruskyj cut in and launched a shot that found the goal off the inside of the far post.

Allen put Oliver at sweeper to start the second half, but even that couldn’t stop the Knights’ attack Saturday. Lenke tallied his second assist on a nice through ball to Cooney, who lifted his shot over a charging Steven Follmer (6 saves) to make it 4-2.

Lenke and Alex Schnepf created a number of scoring chances up front, but they’ve been doing that all year. The key Saturday was that they converted them.

“We always seem to make opportunities for ourselves, it’s just been a matter of putting them in,” Lenke said. “I think today we just took advantage of more of our opportunities than we have in the past.”

Oliver pushed back up top and had a chance just before the hour mark, but was denied on a nice save from Brad Reibel (5 saves).

The Northern Illinois-commit wasn’t going to be denied his hat trick though. He made for a tense final few minutes with a splendid strike from the edge of the 18. Oliver worked for his opening and sent a screamer at the inside of the post for the game’s final goal.

The star forward now has 24 goals on the year and posed a good challenge for a Prospect defense that had allowed just four goals entering the match.

“You can’t give Charlie that much space at the top of the 18,” Trenkle said of the final goal. “That’s a fatal mistake and hopefully we’ll learn that lesson because we’re going to see other fantastic scorers especially if we continue to go deep in the playoffs.”

There may not have been much more the Knights’ defense could do. Reibel had no chance to save any of Oliver’s goals.

“What can you say with what he did today?” Allen said. “He was all over the place. He took it upon himself, beat people 1 v 1 and had three great strikes to beat a very good keeper.”

It wasn’t a one-man show though. Sam Murdock, Roberto and Renato Albuquerque and Orlando Tapia combined well with Oliver up top to create the opportunities.

Obviously, the Gators need to improve the defensive side after being gashed for four goals.

“I think sometimes when we mentally fall asleep and it’s what gets us,” Oliver said. “I think we’re a good enough defense to compete with any of these teams, it’s just we’re young and we need to keep learning.

“You make a couple mistakes and a team like this is going to capitalize.”

Prospect (11-0-2) got to work in some different players while staying undefeated ahead of a week with three home Mid Suburban League matches.

“The plan today was to keep everyone healthy, to get lots of different guys playing time that haven’t been playing and at the same time play hard and try to get the win here,” Trenkle said.

“Three games this week in our division and I think we can seal things up by the end of the week and hopefully move on from there.”

The Gators (10-6, 2-0 in the Fox Valley Conference, Valley Division) are looking towards conference as well with a match against Dundee-Crown on Tuesday.

“The big prize for us is conference so we’re just trying to give us some fresh legs, get a couple new faces up front to get some time in the non-conference game,” Allen said.