Barrington's bench turns the tide vs. Huntley
By Gary Larsen

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In a sectional semifinal game tied 1-1 and with his side suddenly defending more than it was attacking against Huntley, Barrington coach Scott Steib did something you just don’t see very often.

Steib pulled 7 or 8 starters off the field and sent in a squadron of substitutes, during a pivotal portion of the second half.

The move paid off.  The energy that Barrington’s Griffin Claes, Danny Belleno, Sean Kim, Shawn Owen, Jonathan Wilson, Jason Frenk, and Andrew Simek brought to the pitch put the brakes on Huntley’s momentum, and turned it in the Broncos’ favor in an eventual 2-1 Barrington win.

“Those bench guys – what are they going to do when they go in?” Steib said. “They’re not as calm, they’re not as composed, but the one thing they’re going to do is work their (tails) off, and put up some work rate.

“That sort of leveled it and it was simply finding the right group of kids who worked hard enough, and matched (Huntley’s) work rate. Then our (starters) got a chance to catch their breath and look at it. I made them sit there and stew for five minutes and I said ‘look, these kids … are going out and they’ve changed the game back for us, just because they’re working so hard.”

And once Steib re-inserted his starters into the lineup, they responded down the stretch.

“We had to go back to what we do well,” Barrington starting mid Ethan Claes said. “We hadn’t been winning balls in the air, we hadn’t been doing everything we could, so we went back to trying to get the ball wide and play it to space.”

Senior Danny Jaderholm worked the ball to the endline on the right side and earned a few corner kicks that helped re-establish Barrington’s presence in its attacking third.

Freshman Kendal Stork scored the game-winner at 69 minutes on a play set up by a Claes corner kick, after Zach Rowe headed a ball back from the far to the near post, where Stork was waiting.

“The keeper was on my side but I didn’t think he’d have time to get it,” Stork said. “I was thinking about kicking it but  it was just faster to use my head so I went with that.”

Barrington (19-3-3) came out like gangbusters, dominating possession and applying solid pressure during the game’s first ten minutes. Claes worked a ball to the endline on the right side at six minutes and served a ball to the goalmouth, but Huntley keeper Austen Emery made the stop of a David Conrad shot.

Huntley (17-7-1) withstood Barrington’s pressure until the 27th minute, when the Red Raiders were  whistled for a foul in the box and Stork stepped forward to bury the penalty kick.

Trailing 1-0, Huntley responded with a vengeance. The Red Raiders were first to more balls for the next 30 minutes of play and tied the game at 51 minutes on a Jason Zobott head shot, set up by a James Quintana corner kick.

Huntley’s  Niko Mihalopoulos and Lucas Baker are two of the most dangerous players you’ll find on a high school soccer field, and they found a handful of shots on frame along with teammates Manuel Menjivar, Quintana, and Christian Ramos.

“If we get one of those, I think we move on,” Huntley coach Kris Grabner said. “It’s tough. Barrington is a good team and they were so fast at the beginning of that game. I knew they would come back and I knew their energy would change, and unfortunately we didn’t have the response we needed at that point.

“For a good part of that game we kind of had them in panic mode. We made a couple runs at them and that was the message we had at the half – ‘you get on them and pressure them, we’re going to get the turnovers'.”

Steib sat his starters shortly after Zobott tied the game, and they got the message.

“I think we got a little complacent,” Claes said. “We played well to start the game and we thought we had something going, but we kind of held back and didn’t take advantage of everything we needed to. We had been talking the whole time to get it out wide and not get caught up in the middle, and when we did that it worked fine. But we kind of failed to get it wide as much as we should have.

“Our energy was up and down, especially during the middle part of the game. But the first thing (Steib) said to us after the game is that it doesn’t have to be pretty. We just have to get the job done.”

Stork’s second goal of the game gave him a team-leading 18 on the season, and marked the third consecutive game that he has put two goals on the board for Barrington.

“I’ve just been really looking for the ball, and I’m taking people on more than I was during the regular season,” Stork said. “I’ve been attacking and trying to open up opportunities for other people, too, because then the middle of the field is open and they can get off shots.”

Stork’s play was no surprise to Grabner.

“They’ve got a kid who is a freshman that just has a knack and a nose for the goal, and he always has,” Grabner said. “I coached (Stork) for six years of club and he’s always been one of the best goal scorers I’ve ever known, no matter what age.”

With the win, Barrington advanced to play Warren in Friday’s Class 3A sectional title game, at Rockford Auburn.

“I’m proud of the guys,” Steib said. “The Fox Valley continues to get better every year, and it’s a credit to our kids to stick to it and earn the right to play on Friday in a sweet sixteen game. We hadn’t won a playoff game since 2009, so every one of these is being very much appreciated.”