Grenadiers see it slip away against Broncos
Elk Grove can’t hold on to late lead in loss at Barrington

By Dan Santaromita

It’s tough to defend a lead for an entire half when you can’t control the ball.

Elk Grove led most of the game, but surrendered two goals in the last ten minutes to fall to Barrington in a Mid Suburban League crossover on Wednesday.

Barrington controlled the run of play for most of the match, but had trouble getting shots off.

“I think Barrington was better than us for all but 15 seconds when we scored that header in the first half,” Elk Grove coach Joe Bush said. “We really didn’t get anything going.”

That header came from Ernesto Rodriguez with Nick Jordan getting the assist.

“The first half was kind of blah,” Bush said. “We got a chance and we scored. Coach Steib told me it was going to happen. He said ‘Back post we’re weak. We just don’t go up for the ball.’”

Barrington coach Scott Steib rolled his eyes when reflecting upon the Grens' goal, and Steib was annoyed with his team’s lack of intensity, especially early on.

“There’s an expectation I have of intensity and work rate that we were a whole universe away from most of today,” he said. “In the second half it got better, but it’s still not good enough. I’m proud of them for finding a way to win because we’ve lost a lot of these games, but there are a lot of things that we got to do better.”

There was more physical play from both sides and notably more energy from Barrington in the second half.

The Broncos had most of the possession in the last 40 minutes, but couldn’t get near Grenadier goalkeeper Frankie Ortiz’s net.

The Grens began to show a bit of confidence with their only chances of the half coming with about 15 minutes remaining. At that point Barrington was starting to look desperate.

In the 71st minute Bronco midfielder Nikko Maher made a great run with the ball, slicing into the Elk Grove penalty box and putting a shot on goal that Ortiz was only able to block. Reid Strain bashed the loose ball into the net to equalize.

“We went to three up top and said ‘Go forward, go forward and we’ll eventually put one in,’” Strain said. “I kept saying we've got 18 minutes to score, 15 minutes to score and we knew we would score.

We have this saying "d squared, damn determination". Coach said it during halftime and I guess that got through to us and we picked it up.”

The Broncos stayed aggressive and a similar play resulted in Grant McAndrew slamming home the winner on a very nice shot with just 50.1 seconds remaining. Lasse Haataja was credited with the assist.

Elk Grove seemed content on defending the lead instead of taking the play to the Broncos’ end.

“We came out on this field and it seemed like we were a little bit scared and that second half we just defended too much,” Bush said. “I don’t even know if we got a shot on goal in that second half. You can’t defend 40 minutes against a team.”

Bush urged his team to push forward more, but the Grens struggled to connect passes past midfield.

“Any time we got the ball near midfield we either tried to hit it long or we just didn’t connect passes,” he said. “I wanted to hit a couple long balls to relieve pressure, but we just didn’t get it going and Barrington was more physical than us. We knew it was a physical game, they weren’t calling many fouls but we’ve got to adapt. We’ve just got to be better.”

The loss snapped Elk Grove’ (7-3, 3-2 MSL) six-game winning streak.

“We’re dealing with success and we’re trying to figure out how to deal with success,” Bush said. “I hope it refocuses our guys and they’re ready to go because we got a big game against Fremd and they’re a good team.”

The match against Fremd is Saturday at 11 AM.