Grenadiers put their hat in the ring in this year's MSL race

By Gary Larsen

If you’re searching for space to launch a dangerous shot, odds are you won’t find it against Elk Grove this year.

The Grens’ 2-0 shutout of Conant was their 4th straight and their 5th in 7 games, in an MSL clash in Elk Grove.

Take the big, athletic, and smart back three of Matt Ginter, Mike Ginter, and Rafal Borys, add the timely goalkeeping of Frankie Ortiz, and you’ve got the first ingredients of a team that has only given up 3 goals in 7 games this year.

Elk Grove coach Joe Bush doesn’t mind tinkering with personnel all over the pitch, with one exception.

“The only guys I don’t tinker with are the back three,” Bush said. “They’re just so solid back there. They’re smart in the classroom and smart on the field.”

“I really like playing back there with Mike and Matt,” Borys said. “They know how to play, and I like playing with three in the back. We cover for each other well.

This win feels good. We haven’t beaten (Conant) since I’ve been here. We tied them once, so this is exciting.”
 
The Grens (5-2, 2-1 in MSL play) have an offensively creative team this season, but Wednesday marked the first time this year that an opposing team managed to earn an attacking edge over them.

“We probably had the better of the chances, but don’t take anything away from Elk Grove. They played a heck of a game,” Conant coach Jason Franco said. “They played a solid second half. It was a good overall game that probably deserved to be 2-1 or 1-0.”

A wild and wooly Mid Suburban League season is under way. So far in conference play this season, Conant handed previously unbeaten Fremd a loss, and Elk Grove did the same to the Cougars on Tuesday.

After Tuesday’s action, Palatine is the lone team unbeaten in MSL play, while 5 teams have a conference loss each. CLICK HERE FOR MSL STANDINGS

Conant created an edge in shots through 40 minutes but trailed 1-0 at the break when Elk Grove senior Nick Jordan fired a corner kick near-post, the ball fell to sophomore Justin Gavros, and Gavros buried it from 6 yards out just before halftime.

“I feel like near-post crosses are the most dangerous,” Jordan said. “And that’s the second time Justin Gavros has done that for us. He did the same thing against Schaumburg. He’s one of the smaller guys so he’s not going to go up and win a header, but he’ll get everything low and that’s exactly what he did again tonight.”

The only clear-cut thing about Jordan this year is that his role on the team isn’t at all clear-cut. The senior has played central midfielder and forward thus far, and on Tuesday he was the chief culprit in slowing down Conant’s Shivam Patel.

“When we got the one-goal lead, in the second half Conant spent a lot more time on our half,” Bush said. “I think they dropped Shivam (Patel) back a little bit so I put Nick (Jordan) on him, just to try to make it difficult for him to turn. If you give him space to turn you’re going to have problems, and I thought Nick just did a great job on him.
Nick’s the renaissance man on this team.”

Jordan has been happy to do whatever bidding his coach requires.

“He’s one of the best players in our conference. He’s tough,” Jordan said of Patel. “He likes to go forward and I just had to play defense instead of offense. As long as we get the result, that’s all that matters.”

Conant (6-3-1, 3-1) has another skilled, quick, and creative attack this year, and the Cougars pressed hard throughout the second half for an equalizing goal.

Ortiz came up big when he had to against Conant, diving once in each half to swat away shots past the post, on shots by the Cougars’ Tom Kozlowski and Bobby Iatomasi.

“He doesn’t have much to say but when he does, he comes up big,” Borys said of Ortiz. “He can make those two big saves a game and that’s all we need.”

“That’s a huge save in a 1-0 game,” Bush said of Oritz’s airborne swat-away of Iatomasi’s second-half shot.

Ernesto Rodriguez sent a head shot just wide in the 56th minute, but made his statement on the game in the 73rd minute, when Elk Grove bypassed the midfield with a long ball sent over the top.

Rodriguez streaked behind the Conant defense, took a touch around Conant keeper Hugo Gonzalez, and calmly deposited a 2-0 lead inside the far post.

“We had our spurts of holding the ball nicely, and I don’t like us going for the long ball, but we’re fortunate to have two dangerous guys up top and Ernesto finished on that one, which was huge for us,” Bush said.

“I felt like we attacked better in the first half with our ball movement in the final third,” Jordan said. “At the end of the game we didn’t have much attack, obviously, but we knew they were going to push numbers up, and with Ernesto and Cesar (Rodriguez) up top, we’ve got two really fast and talented guys.”

Bush applauded the day’s work put in on the outside at midfield by Irving Cruz, Juan Jaramillo, Eddie Rodriguez, and Nikolay Ianev, but he was also quick to point to Tuesday’s win as a total team effort.

“It’s all 20 pieces,” Bush said. “They’re 20 guys who want to hang out every day, you see them walking together in the halls, and that makes a difference.”

“The history of the program is not the best. We’ve had a lot of two and three-win seasons. But we brought seven of these kids up as sophomores two years ago and it’s paying off. We lost some good players from last season but we’ve got some good players.”