Chicagoland Soccer

Senak's freekick gets Benet past Marist
By Matt Le Cren

Benet’s Alex Senak didn’t have a lot of room to work with as he lined up the free kick from the top of the penalty area, but he didn’t need much.

Despite facing a six-man Marist wall that was not backed up the required 10 yards, Senak managed to bend his 18-yard shot past the wall and inside the right post with 1:11 left in overtime to lift host Benet to a 2-1 victory over Marist Wednesday in a key early-season East Suburban Catholic Conference match in Lisle.

It was the second goal of the season for Senak, a senior forward who managed to put an inside-out spin on his winning blast.

“I’ve been hitting that shot over and over in practice with a slight right-to-left bend and I knew right when I played it that the outside man, when he didn’t step out I knew it was in because I knew it had the bend to get there,” Senak said. “It was exciting, though. I was really happy with it.”

Senak and goalie Kyle Dal Santo are regarded as having the Redwings’ most dangerous legs and they take most of Benet’s free kicks. But to sow a little confusion in the RedHawks’ defensive wall, Senak and Brad Bozych both stood over the ball.

“Before the season started me and Kyle were chosen as the free kick takers, but we have Brad line up just for a little element of deception,” Senak said. “But Brad told me right when I stepped up to take it, “just bury this, just bury this.’ I took that to heart when I was taking that shot.”

As glorious as Senak felt after ending the game, he was quick to deflect credit for the victory, which improved Benet’s record to 7-1-1 overall and 2-0 in the ESCC.

“James Colletti wins that game for us by winning that free kick for us,” Senak stated. “He took a hard blow to the back of the head, so that was all him. I don’t even get that shot if not for him trying to win that header.”

The decisive play began when Dal Santo launched a 50-yard free kick that was punched away by Marist goalie Jimmy Kruse. The ball went up in the air and Colletti, a senior defender who has a habit of winning most of the headers he contests, was fouled hard at the top of the box, setting up a free kick from 18 yards out.

“We talk as a team about the sacrifice and what it takes to win games,” Benet coach Sean Wesley said. “And it’s always great to have the glory like Alex did tonight but the reality is it’s those guys taking fouls and doing things like that that are going to create things for us.”

Senak also gave credit to Dal Santo, who made three diving saves in the second half and also came up to midfield to take several free kicks, thus applying pressure to the Marist defense during a game in which the visitors were able to bottle up the Redwings in the midfield for long stretches.

“It was huge,” Senak said of the last free kick. “It was a great ball into the box and that gave us a good chance to go to goal and win that game.”

It was a win that nearly slipped away from the Redwings, who thought they had Marist beat until the RedHawks (7-3-1, 2-1) tied the game 1-1 on an own goal with 9:25 remaining in the second half. A 50-yard free kick by Brando Rizzo went sailing deep into the Benet box, where it caromed off the head of a Redwing defender and over the head of a surprised Dal Santo.

The Redwings responded by going on the offensive again and had several chances in the final minutes, the best of which came in the 74th minute when Robert Tomecek sent a pass into the box to Sam Knapke, who poked a shot just wide of the right post as Kruse charged out.

But the hosts came off the field dejected at the end of regulation.

“We were definitely a little frustrated coming off the field and our coach was frustrated, too,” Senak said. “We just wanted to get something going and we told ourselves that we weren’t going to let this win [slip away].

“This is our year. We want to win conference. It’s a big deal for us. We know that we have to win all of our games in the regular season to play Saint Viator, which is our rival. When we play Saint Viator at the end of the season we want that game to matter.”

For it to matter, the Redwings know they have to focus more on the fact that every game matters, a lesson the RedHawks taught them.

“They’re a great team,” Senak said. “We were not ready for that game. They came out gunning for us and right from the get-go they had a lot of energy. It was hard to find spaces in the midfield with them packing it in so tightly.”

Continuing a season-long trend, the Redwings had trouble finishing chances. The hosts were awarded a penalty kick with 29:29 left in the first half, but the shot by Bozych hit the inside of the rounded left post and somehow spun across the goal mouth and harmlessly over the right endline.

That proved to be a sign of things to come as Eddie Manzke missed high on a close shot in the 18th minute and Senak lined a 26-yard free kick just over the crossbar in the 20th minute. The first half ended scoreless with neither keeper having made a save.

“We’ve had a hard time scoring this year,” Wesley said. “It plagues us. We get chances and we create a lot.

“I thought we created a lot in that first half and then weren’t really rewarded for it. But we showed some resilience and we showed some character.”

Sophomore Kyle Kenagy showed some nice finishing touch when he finally broke the ice at the 31:51 mark of the second half, nodding a powerful header past Kruse for his fourth goal of the season. Bozych got the assist, taking the ball to the right endline before lofting a cross in front to Kenagy.

The RedHawks responded by controlling the midfield and sending long crosses into the Benet box. Dal Santo came off his line for a one-arm parry on one such serve and made a diving stop to his right on a header by Mike Trevino. Both were set up by free kicks.

Then came the own goal.

“We took a lot of silly fouls in our own half and they created off of that,” Wesley said. “They just played dangerous balls into the box and they were probably due to make one of them. We weren’t getting to them and they were getting in and getting chances. Dal Santo had to make a few big saves.

“They’re a good team. They’re well-coached. They had kids who fought hard and quite frankly they just dominated the air today, which is not normal for us. We’re very used to James Colletti winning everything.”

But in the end, the Redwings got the result they felt they deserved and needed.

“I’m happy with the result,” Wesley said. “We played good soccer at times.”