Lancers bounce back against Bartlett
By Gary Larsen

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Lake Park was in a bad, bad place.

After going 0-3 at last weekend’s Prairie Ridge tournament, the Lancers were trailing Bartlett 2-0, 35 minutes into Tuesday’s Upstate Eight Conference tilt, with their Valley Division-leading 4-0 record in jeopardy.

The Hawks’ Matt Seidl had buried a pair of goals to put the suddenly struggling Lancers in a hole. Luckily for Lake Park, players recently addressed that exact situation.

“It was tough but we had a little, special team meeting today,” Lake Park senior defender Dillon Hock said. “We talked out all our problems and one of the things we wanted to focus on was not quitting. We wanted to come out here today and play a hundred percent, the whole game. We didn’t really do that in the first twenty minutes or so, but we gave it everything we could after that.”

Hock and his boys kept their intensity throughout, getting a goal before halftime and two after the break to come all the way back for the 3-2 win.

With Lake Park head coach Tony Passi away on a mandatory vacation day, assistant coach Chris Fruehling oversaw Tuesday’s proceedings for the Lancers. He liked what he saw on Tuesday.

“We wanted to make today a rebound from the tournament, where we wanted to pull everyone together to make contributions,” Fruehling said. “We wanted everyone to make a big contribution or even a small contribution, because as long as you’re making positive contributions, good things happen. I thought we did that today.”

Despite the loss, Bartlett left the field having taken another developmental step forward. The Hawks have struggled to score but battled defensively all year against quality sides like Lyons Township, Neuqua Valley, and West Chicago.

Moving forward, any team overlooking a Bartlett team with a 1-11 record will do so at its own risk.

Bartlett’s first goal was a thing of beauty. Outside left back Alex Smith battered his way through two Lake Park defenders on his way to the endline, then served a low drive to the near post. Running on, Seidl left his feet and volleyed a shot to the back netting.

Seidl’s finish  was only Bartlett’s sixth goal of the year, but No. 7 wasn’t far behind.

At 35 minutes, Seidl won a ball at the touchline near midfield on the left side. With the Lancers’ backline up high, Seidl broke behind it and dribbled 30 yards before firing on Lancers keeper Zach Czesak. The junior dove right and got a hand on the shot, but the ball had enough on it to roll inside the post.

The explosiveness Seidl showed was no surprise to Hock. “We bit on one and he was off to the races,” Hock said. “I played with (Seidl) for a couple of years. He’s got incredible speed.”

Bartlett coach Ben Beary is just happy to see Seidl nearly fully recovered from a spate of injuries.

“He’s coming around. He hasn’t been a hundred percent until recently,” Beary said. “He’s had to sit out a little because he’s been hurt and had little dings here and there, but he’s finally full strength. He’s dangerous when he gets into that open space and his touch was really good today.”

The game’s pivotal goal likely came next, when Hock got his head on a ball that popped up near the Hawks’ goalmouth, just three minutes before halftime. Hock’s goal cut Bartlett’s lead in half and provided a lift for the Lancers  at the break.

“That was huge. It was a nice momentum shift and we took that into halftime and tried to feed off that a little bit,” Fruehling said. “We were right there, and just needed to keep plugging, keep chugging, keep believing, and be persistent about it.

“When we broke through on the equalizer, I thought the boys even stepped it up another notch.”

For the first 20 minutes of the second half, Bartlett dealt not only with the increased attacking pressure of a team chasing a tying goal, but also Lake Park’s prowess on set pieces. All  season long, when LP junior Joe Keane hasn’t been holding things down in the middle of the pitch, he’s been sending corner kicks, freekicks, and long throw-ins into the mixer.

Until Tuesday, rangy defender Hock hadn’t been able to come forward and finish on any set piece feeds sent in by either Keane or the Lancers’ Kevin Coria. That changed in the game’s 61st minute, when Keane served a corner,  and Hock elevated to finish on it.

“A Keane corner kick -- all year I’ve been getting my head on it and missing by just a few feet, so it feels great to finally get one of those in,” Hock said.

“Dillon is an outstanding target,” Fruehling said. “He’s big, aggressive, and he wants that ball. He wins the majority of those fifty-fifties, and it’s been a matter of us getting that second ball, but in this game he wanted it himself and he stayed after it.”

A game seemingly headed for a tie was derailed at 76 minutes by a Lake Park sophomore, when Kris Lopez finished on a Keane freekick and gave his side a victory on Tuesday. “He stepped up big and he’s been stepping up big all season,” Hock said of Lopez.

The Hawks knew what was coming from the Lancers. “We know their strength is their set pieces, and their second and third chances on set pieces,” Beary said.

“They beat us three times today. But sometimes you can do everything right and get the right men marked, and still get beat. We knew that’s where they’d be dangerous and in the second half we wanted to limit their set piece chances. But good teams find opportunities, and they’re a good team. They beat us with their strength.”

Bartlett keeper Justin Busch made a nice diving save at the post in the second half to keep his side up by a goal at 47 minutes, and Beary got quality minutes from players in each third on Bartlett’s Senior Night.

“Alex Smith is a battler and he had a huge game today,” Beary said. “Adam Jones and Andrew Gott have only been playing center backs together the last two games, because we moved Carlos (Avina) up top. We were also missing two starting midfielders today so to give that kind of performance against Lake Park, I feel good about it. I still feel like we’re going to surprise some teams in the home stretch.”

Smith, Seidl, Zack Audy, Chris Kibler, and Carlos Avina are all seniors this year. The goal produced by Smith and Seidl was a nice punctuation point for the time they’ve put into Beary’s program.

“It was Senior Night and it was nice to see two seniors get that connection going,” Beary said. “Our goal was to come out with more energy for those seniors. These guys have been here for four years and I wish we could have got them the win, because they deserve it. But this was absolutely a step forward. We got goals against a good defense, and we’re going to build off of that.”

The Hawks (1-11, 0-5 in UEC play) are off for a week with Metea Valley and Glenbard West waiting in the wings for games on Tuesday and Thursday of next week.  Lake Park (8-6, 4-0) travels to Glenbard West on Thursday before heading to St. Ignatius on Saturday.

The Lancers aim to continue to rebound from their rough weekend at Prairie Ridge.
 
“With three games in 24 hours we didn’t want to go too hard and kill ourselves, but we didn’t go hard enough,” Hock said. “Like Passi said, this game would be a turning point to try to get us back on a winning streak and headed in the right direction.”

Fruehling was particularly pleased with the day’s work put in one of the team’s best utility men on Tuesday.

“Good job by Gustavo (Contreras) tonight. I used him everywhere,” Fruehling said. “We moved him from the back to central mid, and we made a push in the second half and we sent him up top. It was his first day up top for us this year and he did some nice things. He’s a gamer. He’s a competitor and he just wants to be around the ball and he gives a hundred percent every game.”