Wildcats fall to Benet in Lisle
By Matt Le Cren

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The effort Benet senior Brad Bozych gave Monday is a sterling example of why every young soccer player should never take a play off.

Find yourself far from the net with no one to pass to? Take a potshot at the goal and maybe the ball will go in.

Dribbling in the corner and boxed in by the defense? Stay calm, be patient and keep moving toward the goal and maybe you’ll find the opening you need.

Got your back to the goal as a long throw-in sails toward you? Be aware of where the goalie and the defenders are and be prepared to make a split-second decision on what to do with the ball.

Bozych did all of those things and ended up scoring the first hat trick of his three-year varsity career to lead the host Redwings to a 4-1 win over West Chicago in Lisle in a great non-conference matchup that ended with 15:03 remaining in the second half due to a thunderstorm.

“It feels great to be able to help my team in a big game,” Bozych said. “We came out here knowing what we had to do and it just feels good to be able to come out here and do it.”

Bozych, a co-captain who will play for American University next fall, scored on all three of the shots he took and none of them were of the ordinary variety.

The first came at the 28:32 mark of the first half when he got behind the Wildcats’ defense on the right wing and, despite having no teammates in the vicinity, fired a 30-yard shot toward the goal.

Taken by surprise, West Chicago goalie Paolino Mansera at first took a step forward before retreating as the ball sailed over his head and into the upper left corner of the net.

“I don’t think I was [expecting to shoot it],” Bozych said. “I guess you could say that was a shanked cross. I got a little fortunate and got lucky and it went in.”

Bozych felt fortunate about all three goals, but some fortune is handed to you and other fortune is earned. His haul was of the latter variety.

“He was Johnny-on-the-spot today,” Benet coach Sean Wesley said. “He put himself in a position to be dangerous and puts things on frame.”

That was the case when Bozych scored what turned out to be the game-winner with 26:33 left in the second half. He raced into the left corner to put pressure on the defense, won the ball and then battled his way into the box before poking a short left-footed shot past Mansera to give Benet (9-1-1) a 2-1 lead. The left foot is Bozych’s weaker side, but he has scored three of his five goals off that wing.

“I just kind of took what they gave me,” Bozych said. “They let me go to my left foot and I think just being able to take that space and take what they gave me, I was able to finish it. I was fortunate that they gave me a little space to get one off.”

“He can go left and right and he chooses to keep it simple when he plays left-footed and he finds a way to put it on frame,” Wesley said. “[That goal] was really about all the work. He made a 50-yard run to put himself in position to get on the ball, hold the defender off the ball, drive towards the goal and not take the easy path and just wait in the corner and fortunately was rewarded for it.”

Wesley believes the four goals his squad scored were rewards for hard work, work that has not always paid off for the Redwings this season. Take away a 7-0 victory over Joliet Catholic, and Benet had scored 14 times in its first nine games, so putting in four against a solid West Chicago defense that had allowed only seven scores, never more than two in a game, was a big accomplishment.

“It’s kind of what we’ve been doing all year and not really getting rewarded for it,” Wesley said. “It kind of came together at the right time today, some of those things. Call it luck, call it hard work; it was a little bit of a combination of both, and we feel like if we press the issue enough, we’re going to create enough of those chances that will lead to goals.”

The Redwings pressed the issue after taking the lead and Bozych tallied his third goal with 17:55 to play off a throw-in from Jonathan Mojica.

Bozych was stationed about eight yards in front of the right post when Mojica’s ball bounced in front of him. He glanced at Mansera, who correctly came out to try to take the ball away lest Bozych have an open look from the six, and headed the ball over the goalie’s head and watched it roll across the line.

James Colletti then finished the scoring by knocking in a corner kick from Robert Tomecek and that’s when the game was halted as the storm hit.

“You’ve got to hand it to Benet,” West Chicago coach Jose Villa said. “They worked hard today. They definitely made their opportunities happen and they were a very, very hard-working group and I think that they definitely outplayed us.

“[It was] unlucky for us that we didn’t create as many opportunities as we would have liked to, but you’ve got to hand it Benet for their effort.”

The Wildcats (8-2-1) did have a few chances in the first half but Benet goalie Kyle Dal Santo made both of his saves in the period, one a leaping effort to snare a header by Jesus Fernandez and the other an easy stop on a shot by Ricardo Esparza. Two other shots were blocked by Colletti and Theo Athanassiades.

But West Chicago did break through at the 29:44 mark of the second half when Edgardo Alcantar tied the game on a nice effort in the box. The senior midfielder took a pass out of the air with his right foot, waited as a defender committed and cut back to his left. He then dribbled twice into the middle of the box before sliding a 12-yard shot past the diving Dal Santo.

“Edgardo is a very creative player and he’s capable of doing those kinds of things,” Villa said. “He was just very composed and finished inside the box, just like he should, so that’s something to take back and something positive from today’s game. There was not as much positive stuff going on here today as you’d like, so we’ve still got quite a bit to work on.”

Alcantar’s goal did not deflate the Redwings, who answered three minutes later with Bozych’s second goal.

“It showed the resilience that we’re looking for,” Wesley said. “To the boys’ credit, the attitude didn’t change. They were aggressive the whole game.

“But [the Wildcats] are a great team. Obviously they have a lot of talent, they play fast, they’re aggressive. [Midfielder Diego Munoz] is one of the better players I’ve seen this year. Obviously I’m very happy with the result. I think we’re all feeling pretty good right now.”

Bozych agreed.

“I think it does a great deal for our confidence going forward,” he said. “We talked before the game about playing with a chip on our shoulders and playing with a lot of swagger. The results we’ve had haven’t really done justice to how good of a team we are and I think today we kind of showed how good we are and made a big statement.”

The result was the first decisive defeat for the Wildcats, who are off to one of their best starts ever. Despite being unseeded, they made it to the quarterfinals of the Pepsi Showdown before losing 1-0 to reigning state champion Morton last Thursday. They responded by knocking off top-seeded Warren in a consolation match on Saturday.

But the loss to Benet was an eye-opener.

“It shows some of our guys that we’re not invincible,” Villa said. “Maybe some of us [were] thinking that we’re greater than what we really are, so this puts us back on our two feet.”