Sabres drop season opener after Panthers stage late rally

By Darryl Mellema


Had Monday's season-opener at Glenbard North been a 70-minute match, Streamwood coach Matt Polovin would have walked off happy and victorious.

However, even though the Sabres fell 3-2 thanks to three Panthers goals in those final 10 minutes, Polovin was anything but displeased with his team's opening-night performance.

"I have eight underclassmen on the team - 5 sophomores, 3 freshmen," Polovin said. "It's the first game and I was trying to play as many people as I could. I'm happy with how things were. You always want to get the win in the end. But it's a long season and this is only the first game and it's not the end of the world."


Until Glenbard North's late rally, Streamwood's defense had been one of the talking points of the match. Nominally, the Sabres play a 4-3-3 formation, with the defense organized in a flat back four setup. But with the outside backs, especially right back Luis Rodriguez, given license to move forward, it often appeared Streamwood was playing with only three defenders.

"I always want my outside marking backs to get as involved in offense as much as possible," Polovin said. "It really keeps the other team honest, so to speak. It keeps their defenders moving because our guys coming up the wing adds one or two players offensively that they have to worry about."

Juan Ortiz was the other outside back with Logan Thompson and Gilberto Alba playing centrally to keep shots from reaching Jose Resendiz in goal. Even the center backs had license to roam. Late in the second half, Alba raced deep into the midfield and then moved back to form the four-man cordon again defensively.

"I give them the freedom but I want them to do their job defensively when it's time to get back," Polovin said. "I think they did for most of the game. We had a little hiccup for 10 minutes and it cost us."

What that defensive fluency allowed was for the Sabres to often outnumber Glenbard North in central midfield, which gave the visitors a large advantage in possession time.

With that advantage of added time on the ball, Streamwood carved the opening goal with 8 minutes left in the first half when Alejandro Avalos passed to Ivan Arce on the right wing and Arce launched the ball into the net.

Fourteen minutes into the second half, Streamwood scored what appeared to be a devastating second goal. The combination for the goal was the same as the first - this time with Avalos sending a through ball on the ground for Arce to run onto. Arce beat the Glenbard North goalkeeper and tapped the ball into the now-empty net.

"(The pass) was perfectly placed and (Arce), instead of panicking, he moved right around the goalie and tucked it into the net," Polovin said.

Then Glenbard North rallied. Eric Dailly scored with 11 minutes to play after taking a Jon Collucci pass. Just 2:08 later, Alex Kfoury fed Colucci to tie the match.

"One weakness this year is that I don't have a lot of depth defensively," Polovin said. "So I don't have a lot of guys I can interchange. You could tell the guys were getting a little winded out there. But we had our chances offensively - and when you don't put in the easy ones that are 5 feet away, those will come back to haunt you."

The Panthers won the match with 5:25 to play when Kfoury got free on the right side of the penalty area. He shot and had his effort blocked by Resendiz. The rebound came directly back to Kfoury, who scored to win the match.

Streamwood gets right back into action on Tuesday with a match against Waubonsie Valley.