Cougars' 8-game win streak snapped vs. Reavis
By Bill Scheibe

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Once Reavis’ Kamil Szczesniak placed the soccer ball on the stripe, Plainfield South goalkeeper Tyler Olsen clapped his hands and raised his arms toward the crossbar, his gloves reaching for the iron.

He was ready.

“I had a feeling he might go that way,” Olsen said of Szczesniak’s shot on a penalty kick. “I saw the way his eyes were going when he set it up, and I knew either he’s faking me out or he’s going right corner. I just went with my gut on that one. You have the team on your back when you’re up against that.”

Only 12 minutes, 1 second into the first half Saturday afternoon, Olsen was up against it and then some. The senior stymied the PK attempt with a diving stop, but Szczesniak scored 10:24 later to lift Reavis to a 1-0 victory over the host Cougars in the final game of the pool play at the Lincoln-Way Tournament.

In the Battle of the Blue, with both teams donning that color as the staple style of their uniforms, Plainfield South (8-2) saw its eight-game winning streak snapped when Szczesniak’s header on a corner kick service from senior defender Jorge Martinez sent Reavis (8-1) into a goal-scoring celebration.

Oddly enough, that goal was sandwiched between Plainfield South’s best effort of the game, with Olsen (11 saves) allowing the Cougars to survive the majority of the Rams’ onslaught to counter in kind. Junior Marcin Kobylarczyk made 10 saves to earn the shutout for Reavis, although it certainly wasn’t easy.

A good loss, perhaps?

“It could be, it could be,” Plainfield South coach Dave Brown said. “It could benefit us in the long run. It’s our first chance at an elimination type of atmosphere, with Reavis being 2-0 and us being 2-0 in the tournament. They had the goal differential on us, so we knew that we had to win the game outright.

“We had a discussion yesterday, watched some film, and talked about how all the games are going to be tough the rest of the year. There are no more easy ones or ones we can look past and be successful. We talked about using this as an experience for the conference games coming up and for the playoffs.”

As far as playoff atmosphere goes, Reavis grasped that concept first, with sophomore forward Roger Valdez whistling the one-timer of a headed rebound barely past the far-right post in the 11th minute.

Then, a frantic run down the left sideline by Szczesniak, a senior midfielder, resulted in a tripping infraction inside the box. His hard shot, however, smacked loudly in the palms of Olsen’s readied gloves.

“Those first few minutes of the first half, we really weren’t playing our best,” sophomore midfielder Parker Gallt said. “But then Tyler stepped up and stopped that PK and it really lifted up our spirits.”

“Our energy wasn’t where it needed to be in the first 20 minutes,” Brown nodded. “We settled in after that, and Tyler has been playing great for us all year. He has kept us in a lot of games, and the goal that they scored on the corner was not his fault. He saved a PK – what more can you ask from your goalie?”

In the closing 20:41 of the first half, Plainfield South came alive. Senior midfielder Manny Sanchez started that stretch with a direct kick that Kobylarczyk bobbled and senior forward Anthony Skrip followed with a run, beating two defenders before crossing a beaut of a pass that was cleared away.

Sophomore sweeper Michael Santillo lofted a dangerous, 50-yard free kick that rose into the wind like a balloon. Senior midfielder Eduardo Conde cranked a shot straight at the keeper. But the best ended up being Kobylarczyk’s hockey goalie-like kick save on a one-timer from junior midfielder Miguel Espinoza.

“I was just trying to get it on frame and I didn’t care where,” Espinoza said of the play, which featured a feed from sophomore midfielder Adam Burt. “I was close to the goal and I thought it was going to go in, but we were unlucky. We just couldn’t put our opportunities away. We have to work on finishing.”

“I don’t think we finished our chances today and we gave them a few too many,” Brown pointed out. “We saved a few, including the PK, but the corner kick they scored on cost us. We have to finish.”

Still, the Cougars were not finished. Sanchez opened the second half in the third minute with a shot from the right side. The point-blank rebound went to Gallt. Kobylarczyk allowed another rebound, with Espinoza sending the parlay wide past the left post. Gallt also headed a corner that was punched away.

“It was there,” Gallt said. “I saw it and I tried to score, but I didn’t place it in a corner and it didn’t happen. Instead of placing it in a corner, I shot it right at him. We had a few tough chances, and he dropped a few that we felt we could have finished on and it might have been a difference.”

Big games require difference-makers and Olsen played that part for Plainfield South, a facet the Cougars needed with Reavis gaining a 19-14 edge in shots (12-10 on goal) and an 8-3 advantage in corner kicks.

Despite allowing the goal on Szczesniak’s no-chance header off the corner, Olsen could count on the confidence of his fellow Cougars when he planted his spikes on the goal line before the stressful PK.

His teammates were convinced.

“I knew he was going to stop it,” Espinoza said. “We have a lot of faith in Tyler. I had no doubt.”