Huskies drop first MSL loss at Prospect
By Dan Santaromita

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After more than 90 minutes of play between Prospect and Hersey without goals, and mostly without scoring chances, Matt Wruskyj had the ball fall right where he wanted.

The Prospect senior midfielder took advantage of the fortuitous bounce and drilled the ball into the corner of the net for the golden goal winner.

Thanks to Wruskyj’s heroics the host Knights came away 1-0 winners in the second overtime over Hersey, which entered the match undefeated in Mid Suburban League play. Prospect (2-4-2, 2-2-1 MSL) was winless through its first six matches, but has now won two in a row.

Neither team was dominant in the constant rain at George Gattas Memorial Stadium in Mt. Prospect. Both teams struggled to create offensive opportunities outside of set pieces, that were all ineffective, but Wruskyj took the rare chance when it came his way in the 94th minute.

A cross from the right was headed out right to the feet of Wruskyj at the top of the box. His first touch resulted in his first goal of the season.

“We’ve practiced all the time with throw ins and stuff that a lot of times it gets headered back out and we have to have a guy there,” Wruskyj said. “I happened to be there. It came right to my foot and I just nailed it right in the corner.”

After a slow start to the season the Knights are beginning to put better play together and Thursday’s win over a quality Hersey side showed the gradual day-by-day improvement is starting to turn into results.

“They really deserve that because we’ve been talking about just getting a little bit better every day and I think this was an example of that,” Prospect coach Kurt Trenkle said. “I think we’re a much better team than we were two and a half or three weeks ago.

“Everyone is getting into the game. Even the role players are doing a fine job when they’re there. We’re starting to get some leadership step up. That’s what I need. This is a long MSL season and it’s getting pretty tangled in the top of the table so hopefully we can climb our way back up there.”

With Hersey’s loss Buffalo Grove moved into a tie atop the MSL East with the Huskies. Both team have nine points while Prospect, Rolling Meadows and Wheeling are within three points of the top spot. Things could get even tighter on Tuesday when the Huskies host West leader Palatine.

After encouraging overtime wins over Barrington and Schaumburg in recent weeks, Hersey coach Darren Llewellyn was left to wonder what happened to his team’s attack.

“The other night against Schaumburg we created chance after chance after chance from excellent one-touch passing, great double diagonal runs so I figured we’d be OK tonight, but it just didn’t happen,” Llewellyn said. “We had nothing and that was surprising because we’ve attacked teams heavier than this.”

John Cappuccitti was the Huskies’ bright spot going forward, but Llewellyn noted that even his free kicks weren’t as crisp as usual. It was just one of those games where nothing worked for Hersey offensively.

“We pretty much just got into a kick ball game and we couldn’t recover,” Llewellyn said. “I told the boys that this is the type of game that you need to reflect on because we just made poor mistakes defensively, no communication, hitting balls low to the half backs, not letting them go out when they should go out, the clearances were straight down the middle.”

Still, the Huskies’ reputation as a strong defensive squad showed yet again. Prospect showed spells of nice possession play in midfield, but was denied time after time thanks to the play of Hersey defenders Jonothon Dickey, Campbell White and Michael Freda. Irving Velasquez had seven saves in the loss.

Jack Cooney made 12 saves for Prospect’s second shutout in a row. Senior defender Ethan Graven was once again a standout, but Alex Whiteman, Matt Burikas and Curtis Glennon were also mistake free at the back.

The Knights have relied on the veteran defense a lot in the early part in the season, but better midfield play gave them more of a respite.

“I thought we moved the ball better than we have moved the ball this year,” Trenkle said. “We knew that Hersey was going to defend well. They’re extremely well coached and disciplined and we saw that again tonight. We were able to keep the build ups coming and keep composure even though we kept running into that brick wall.”

Avi Chitman, Kennedy McNamara and Wruskyj were key figures in the improved Prospect midfield.

“Other games we’ve had difficulties moving it through the middle and then outside with the switches, but finally we got it,” Wruskyj said. “Going through the middle, quick switches, up the wings, to the forwards and that’s just what we haven’t had before and that’s our big downfall.”

Prospect will try to keep improving with a Tuesday MSL crossover at Fremd.