Redwings unbeaten in last 12 games

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By Matt Le Cren

The best teams are capable of winning even when they don’t play their best or don’t have all of their weapons in the lineup.

By that measure, Benet is going to be awfully tough to beat in the postseason. The Redwings (13-3-1) extended their winning streak to 10 games Saturday by knocking off Naperville Central, a team seeded four places higher than them in the Naperville North Sectional, 2-0 in Lisle. They did it without leading scorer Hunter Miller, who was on a college visit.

“We had a streak in the Best of the West tournament where some of our guys weren’t there and since then we’ve all come back and we’ve realized that in order to make it [far] into the playoffs you have to have some momentum,” Benet senior Benjamin Kucera said. “And I think we’re just trying to do more and more of what we didn’t do last year and that’s play possession soccer.

“Today maybe wasn’t the best example of that but I think the sheer fact that we can get a win even when we’re not playing our best soccer says a lot.”

The Creighton-bound Kucera, who is second to Miller in scoring and leads Benet in assists, was a big reason why the Redwings were able to prevail despite being outshot 14-9 and having few legitimate scoring chances. He assisted on the first Benet goal and scored the other on a penalty kick

The assist came just 3:02 into the contest when his serve from the right wing found junior Alex Senak, whose power header from six yards out beat Naperville Central goalie Mike Pavliga, who came into the match having given up only six goals this fall.

“It was [a great finish],” Kucera said. “Alex does it every day at practice and I love to see it in a game.”

It was the second goal of the campaign for Senak, who had to leave the game in the second half when he collided with Pavliga.

“He’s rounding into form,” Benet coach Sean Wesley said. “He’s one of those kids who had a tough transition early going from sophomores to varsity and has really now embraced the team and our philosophy in how we’re doing things.”

Kucera made it 2-0 with 22:39 left in the second half by converting a penalty kick after Naperville Central (13-3) was whistled for a hand ball in the box. It came against the run of play, which mostly favored the Redhawks in the second half.

“Very happy with the result, although we didn’t showcase talent,” Wesley said. “I mean we worked hard for most of the game. We played good defense, we won a lot of 50-50 balls, blocked a lot of shots and definitely had guys selling out and wanting to win, but not our best soccer, not even close.

“We were missing Hunter Miller and he’s a big part of what we do offensively, he’s a big part of how we distribute the ball and without him today it was a challenge. I thought it meant sloppy soccer.

“That said, I thought we earned two PKs that weren’t called before the one Kucera had. One in the first half and then the bump on Alex’s head is one of the nastiest I’ve ever seen and it didn’t get called. But we kept fighting.”

Indeed, the Redwings were outstanding in the back, with Robert Tomecek, Brendon Gesior, James Colletti and Dan Coleman consistently blocking shots and clearing balls out of trouble. When they didn’t, goalie Kyle DalSanto came up with a few brilliant saves.

In recording Benet’s 10th shutout, DalSanto made six saves, including leaping efforts to tip a 20-yard free kick by Pat Flynn over the crossbar with 7:00 left in the first half and deflect a Jack Patrick header upstairs with 5:00 to go in the second. He also made a diving save on a point-blank shot from Sam Reskala.

“They were good and to be honest it’s an age-old story; we didn’t take advantage of some opportunities that we had,” Naperville Central coach Troy Adams said. “We had a couple of guys who got in almost in the clear and just couldn’t put the ball away.

“ Give them credit. They did a great job of finishing their opportunities. They got players forward when they needed to and they counterattacked out of the back well. The first half they played inspired soccer and we just went through the motions.”

Kucera said the Redwings are able to play their game and not panic even when under pressure, and that accounts for how well they’ve done so far.

“I think this year more than any other I think our guys know their individual roles, me included, and I think if everyone just sticks to their role they don’t have to do anything special,” Kucera said. “You stick to your role, you pass and move and I think that at a high school level is actually pretty amazing, if you can get that down and keep playing that way even when you play a more difficult opponent. Sometimes you’re just willing to kick and run and I think the fact that sometimes we try to settle it down sets us apart from other teams.”

Scoring twice on the Redhawks sets Benet apart from most teams. The Redwings became just the second team to do it this year, though disturbingly for Central it was the second time it’s happened in the last three matches. Naperville North beat the Redhawks 2-0 on Tuesday to snap their nine-game winning streak.

“We’ve got four halves that we’ve played since we lost to North and I told the guys I hope we’re not closing up the season because we lost to North,” Adams said. “North’s a good team, Benet’s a good team. We’re going to play good teams and if you don’t come out and compete with them we’re going to lose.

“We probably played 20 minutes of good soccer here but Benet is way too good of a team to be able to play 20 good minutes of soccer. You’ve got to give 80.”

The 80-minute effort is something the Redwings, who haven’t been score on in six games, know is required of them, too.

“I think we know that and that’s what makes us keep going,” Kucera said. “Coach in practice kind of makes it really difficult on us every day and I think the difficulty of practice and the difficulty of the game are pretty close together. It helps us a lot.”