Hersey falls victim to Palatine's style of play
By Dan Santaromita

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Hersey has struggled to match up with teams that play a direct style of soccer, and Palatine is one of the best teams around at playing directly.

Palatine’s usual formula of organized defense and maximizing set pieces resulted in a 2-0 Mid Suburban League win in Arlington Heights on Tuesday night. The Pirates took the lead on an own goal off a throw in and sealed the win when a killer free kick from Saul Gutierrez set up a Sergio Hernandez score.

The Pirates (8-0-2, 5-0-1 MSL) remained undefeated while the host Huskies (6-7, 3-2 MSL) dropped a fourth in five matches.

Palatine has been a consistent force every time out this fall, but Hersey has mixed in strong performances with forgettable ones. Coach Darren Llewellyn is hoping for changes ahead of Wednesday’s match at Hoffman Estates will result in better midfield and possession play from his team.

“We got into their game,” Llewellyn said. “We can’t play a direct game against a team like this. We have no chance. If we would have slowed the game down, even get some possession, get in the midfield, play it back, try to extend them and then play through it we would have had more success. That takes that patience.”

The Pirates dominated the first 15 minutes of the match, keeping the ball in Hersey’s half almost exclusively. They had nothing to show for it, but it was clear that Hersey wasn’t able to get into a rhythm.

“Before the game I told them exactly what they were going to do,” Llewellyn said. “From the deep sweeper, to the runs, to the throw in plays, I told them everything. The problem was we didn’t get any diagonal runs from our forwards. We didn’t get any possession outside to draw the last man out.

“Every time they put it back in we would just send it back out, they’d win it in the midfield and come right back at us.”

In the 29th minute Huskies forward Johnny Cappuccitti demonstrated his skill on the ball by shaking free of a defender and unleashing a powerful drive that Palatine keeper Kyle Leber (3 saves) had to go full stretch on a dive to stop.

Cappuccitti is Hersey’s most dangerous player on the attack. While Llewellyn admitted he would like to see him be more selfish near goal, the Pirates did a good job of minimizing his chances after that shot.

“You can’t dive in on him,” Palatine senior defender Ulises Alcaraz said. “You can’t let him get that first touch or he will use it to his advantage so you just have to take away his first touch.”

A few minutes later a Gavin Falotico throw in created some havoc in the Hersey area, but the Pirates’ attempt on goal was cleared off the line.

The teams went into halftime goalless, but Palatine scored four minutes into the second half. A throw from Jeremy Velinski took a couple deflections and keeper Irving Velasquez (7 saves) wasn’t able to get to the ball before it went into his net for an own goal.

Palatine held the lead without major trouble throughout the second half and put the match away with a 76th minute goal from Hernandez. Even though it’s Hernandez’s name on the score sheet, Gutierrez deserves most of the credit for hitting a free kick that David Beckham would be proud of.

The Pirates drew a foul at the top right corner of the box. Gutierrez stepped up to the ball and made a mockery of the Hersey wall, putting an impressive amount of curl on the ball only to see his majestic shot hit off the inside of the near post. Hernandez was there to tap in the rebound for the insurance goal.

Free kicks are Gutierrez’s specialty. He said he taught himself to hit balls with that special spin.

“I always practice free kicks,” he said. “I saw the goalie was far from the (near) post.”

It was the fifth shutout for Leber and the Palatine defense. The Pirates have allowed more than one goal just once this season.

“We have a lot of chemistry in our back line,” Alcaraz said. “We know how to work well with each other and how to defend well against any team.”

The Palatine defense will be tested on Wednesday when Fremd comes in for the Celtic Cup. The Vikings have won three in a row and scored 11 goals in those three MSL games.

For Hersey the frustration is in the lack of being unable to match the strong performances from earlier in the season. Despite the recent slump Llewellyn thinks his team can back to what made them a dangerous team.

“There were times where if we could have gotten a goal if would have changed the nature of the game,” Llewellyn said. “I always think that we can turn it around. All we do in training is possession. All we do is keep away variations.”