Cougars edge Wildcats for second straight year

By Curt Herron

 

CLICK HERE FOR PLAINFIELD SOUTH'S TEAM PAGE

 

Last Labor Day, Plainfield South's players celebrated wildly after they captured their initial victory over rival Plainfield Central.

A year later, the Cougars got the chance to enjoy another first, their initial win on the Wildcats' field, in another Labor Day clash.

Although the celebration was more reserved following Monday's 2-1 win as opposed to last year's 1-0 victory, South's players had good reason to feel excited.

The victory over the Wildcats gives the Cougars a six-match win streak, and just as important, helps them to a 2-0 start in the Southwest Prairie Conference.

In what is expected to be a competitive SPC race, South has opened with a pair of dramatic road wins. It defeated Oswego East 4-3 on penalties last Tuesday.

South got goals from Cesar Bautista and Manny Sanchez surrounding a score by Dan Rosenbaum off of an assist from Mo Rashid for Central.

Holding a 2-1 halftime lead, Cougar keeper Tyler Olsen and his backline managed to keep the Wildcats at bay in order to secure the win.

South's defense featured Michael Santillo at sweeper, Dominic Nirchi at stopper and Nhkole Thakhisi, Carlos Arechiga and Anthony Hernandez at outside back.

"For the last few years it's been a coin flip when these two teams meet," South coach Dave Brown said. "They dominated us early on but once we've gotten our program to where we think it should be, it's become a dogfight.

"Their style is hard for us to match with the long throws and free kicks, so each year I'm worried when we come over here about whether we'll compete with them for 50-50 balls, but today we did just enough against them.

"Our two goals in the first half were huge, especially the first when Cesar put that shot away since it kind of calmed everyones' nerves. We didn't do a great job marking on their free kick but Manny responded with a goal.

"At halftime we talked about committing ourselves to challenging everything. If you kept track of the 50-50s, I think we won more than they did and that was probably the difference in the game right there."

While Brown was obviously pleased to see another dramatic win over their rivals, he prefers to look at things in a bigger picture.

And that's the steady improvement of this year's squad, which hasn't been beaten since it dropped its opener to Lincoln-Way Central.

South hopes to keep things going in the Lincoln-Way Invite, beginning with Marian Catholic today and then Lincoln-Way North and Reavis later in the week.

"Part of it right now is getting our guys to believe that they're a good team," Brown said. "I think early on they didn't really know what to expect from each other and losing the first one may have put us back a bit.

"We've competed with some of the good teams in the area and see that we're right there with them. We told our guys that every time we put on the shoes we should be ready to play. We can beat anyone on any given day

"One of the goals that the guys came up with was to overcome adversity. Every time adversity has met us so far, we've stepped up a rose to the occasion. For them to come up with a goal like that on their own is great."

While South (6-1, 2-0) was able to walk away feeling good about its hard-earned win on a warm day, Central (2-3-1, 0-1) was downcast.

Although the close struggle came as no surprise to Wildcat coach Kevin Fitzgerald, he didn't expect to see the Cougars out-play them.

"They played harder than us and they out-worked us," Fitzgerald said. "As I told our guys, we've got to start doing a lot of little things a lot better.

"I thought we matched up alright against them. But I don't think that we executed very well today and when you don't execute against a team that's pretty decent and is giving you a better effort, that's why you lose.

"We were one play away a lot of times today, but that's also the recipe for losses. We've got to find some people who are going to make the one play because we can't keep being one play away."

Central has a few days off to work on things before it returns to action on Saturday when it faces Loyola Academy in the Pepsi Showdown.

"We play teams in order to prepare for games like this one with South," Fitzgerald said. "It doesn't get any any easier since we play Loyola next and we've watched them play and know that they're very good.

"It doesn't matter that much about the other team, it's more about what we do and we have to do better. We've got a lot of practice time this week and we've got to work on a lot of things."

The two squads exchanged good attempts in the opening 10 minutes before South moved ahead for the initial time in the tenth minute.

After Central's Nick Belom and South's Michael Decker were both denied, Bautista sent in a try that eluded keeper Tyler Badertscher.

The Wildcats responded to the goal with efforts from Rashid and Miguel Duran before the Cougars answered with a Rodrigo Garcia shot.

Central evened things in the 17th minute when Rashid sent in a free kick that Rosenbaum gathered in and then put in from close range.

Just past the midway mark of the half, Rashid took a free kick from just beyond the top of the box but Olsen knocked down the attempt.

Shortly after Olsen stopped a close effort by Miguel Sanchez, Manny Sanchez put South ahead for good with a liner in the 37th minute.

"This is a great feeling, especially since we beat them last year on our field," Manny Sanchez said. "It feels even better beating them on their field. I knew it would be a good game and that we'd have to fight to get the win.

"I didn't start out well, but after scoring that goal, I picked up my game and knew that I'd have to keep it up if we were going to get the win.

"We play as a team, even though we aren't all at the same age group. The good thing is that we all get along and we like to play together."

Although there were plenty of close calls during the final 40 minutes, both Olsen and Badertscher came up with their share of big saves.

Decker was stopped on a short try to start the sequence and a few minutes later, an attempt from Sanchez was deflected away by Santillo.

Not long before the second half's midpoint, Rashid sent a free kick to Nick Castellucci, whose header was hauled in by the Cougar keeper.

South countered with a Garcia throw-in which went inside to Bautista, whose header was punched over the top of the net by Badertscher.

The final quarter hour began with Olsen punching away a corner kick from John Hurley and then stopping a short attempt by Rosenbaum.

After Miguel Sanchez was denied on a short effort, Eddie Rios bounced a shot off the post and then saw his rebound snuffed by Olsen.

A few minutes after the Cougar keeper deflected a good Central chance, he punched away an attempt by Belom to finally end the drama.

Other than the Oswego East match, where it allowed three goals, including two late in regulation, South has three shutouts and allowed one goal in two other contests.

"This is big win since it's the first time we beat Central on their field," Santillo said. "It feels nice to be a part of history. It's nice to be ahead of everyone in conference and know that they're chasing us.

"They have a lot of big guys and we're a shorter team. They're big and strong and are dangerous with their long balls. We've been waiting for this game all year, so it definitely feels good to get this win.

"We have great chemistry, we're all friends and we play together as a team. If we keep our composure and come in focused, then we do well. If not, then things turn out like they did against Oswego East."