Sabres fall to WW South in Pepsi opener
By Matt Le Cren

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How confident was Wheaton Warrenville South goalie Timothy Reinders going into Saturday’s penalty kick shootout against Streamwood?

“Very. I have a good track record with PKs and I’ve played goalie long enough that I try and read shooters,” Reinders said. “I try and see where they’re going to go and go there. It’s not an exact science. Nothing is, but it works.”

It certainly did in this match. Reinders saved two of Streamwood’s three penalties during the shootout, which the Tigers won 4-1 to secure a 1-0 victory in the opening round of the Pepsi Showdown in LaGrange.

The win advanced the 11th-seeded Tigers (6-1) into Tuesday’s second round against No. 7 seed Metea Valley, which edged Kelly 1-0.

Under tournament rules, games go straight to penalty kicks after regulation. The shootout began with Max Carey converting for the Tigers. Reinders then dove to his right to stop Alejandro Avalos, which set the tone for the entire sequence.

“It really does (set the tone),” Reinders said. “[Avalos] set up the ball low on the ground. I thought he was going to go to my right and he ended up doing that.”

“It wasn’t struck real well but you’ve still got to guess the right way,” WW South coach Guy Callipari said. “He cleaned it up. I thought his second save was a stellar save and that takes a lot of confidence away from the shooter.”

Reinders’ second save was indeed stellar and it took away more than the Sabres’ confidence. His lunging dive to his left to parry Daniel Nevarez’s offering turned out to be Streamwood’s last kick, as Javier Rojas clinched it for the Tigers by making his attempt.

“[Nevarez] set up the ball up on the turf so I thought he was going to go high to my left and that’s where he went,” Reinders said.

Christian Rodriguez was the only Streamwood player to convert in the shootout, while the Tigers made all four of their attempts. Patrick Nelson and Jose Perez were the other scorers.

“We’ve been practicing them all week thinking it might come down to this eventually,” Callipari said.

Streamwood coach Matt Polovin said his players will have to work more on that aspect of their game, but the Sabres (5-4) did well in every other area, giving the Tigers all they could handle despite playing without their best player.

“If they had ranked this tournament last week we would not have been playing Streamwood today,” Callipari said. “They’re good. They’re a great side, very technical and comfortable. I think maybe they ran a little bit out of gas when we spread the field a little bit.

“I think it was a game of two halves,” he added. “They certainly had the better of the first half. We weathered the storm.

“We played good defense all day long and in the second half we were able to get in transition and consequently we were able to get numbers forward, having more possessions through the middle and quality opportunities at the end.”

The Sabres were without the services of leading scorer Mario Rodriguez, who was serving an automatic one-game suspension for getting a red card late in Thursday’s 1-0 loss to Larkin. But Streamwood responded well behind the likes of Nevarez, Avalos, Christian Vences and Oliver Huerta, who worked well together in pressuring the WW South defense.

“I felt like we created and played a nice game,” Polovin said. “I thought they stepped up great. Sure it would have been nice to have Mario there but I think that’s what makes our team the way we are this year by being a team.

“Our guys saw our best guy is out. Do we sit back and cry about it or are we going to step up and play even harder? I thought they stepped up and did everything they could to try and make up for his absence. And that’s what I like about our guys this year. There’s no quit. They played hard for 80 minutes and just couldn’t get it in.”

The Sabres almost got a goal in the opening minutes, just missing a couple of shots off give-and-go plays. After that, the Tigers defense led by Michael Stelletello, Tom Kerby, Joseph Spera and Ethan Trinh slammed the door shut.

Reinders didn’t have to do much as Stelletello alone blocked five shots and Kerby made numerous steals.

“I have to say my defense did phenomenal,” said Reinders, who finished with four saves. “They blocked a lot of shots and they didn’t let a lot of plays develop. It was because of them we were able to go to PKs, so I truly have to thank my defense for that. Mikey, Joey and Tom are the core guys I rely on.”

Callipari was impressed with the play of his back line.

“It was stellar job by the defense today,” said Callipari, whose team posted its third shutout. “We kind of get away with making 15-20 mistakes a game. Today we didn’t make any, not one mistake that I saw that put us under pressure. Everything was clean, they worked well off the ball.

“The first couple minutes of the game [Streamwood] had a couple give-and-gos and we got caught watching as opposed to tracking.  That’s just being anxious a little bit and then they kind of settled in. They stayed organized.”

So, too, did the Sabres, who allowed only five shots in the first half before the Tigers put on more pressure toward the end. Goalie Bryan Contreras made two of his three saves after intermission, including an acrobatic move after a shot by Rojas hit the crossbar with 11:55 remaining.

The ball bounced high in the air and Contreras leaped as high as he could to poke the ball away from a wide-open Trinh in front. Earlier, Rojas had a left-footed shot in the box roll wide of the left post, and the Tigers had another chance in the final minute when Carey took a 35-yard free kick that was headed wide of the far post by Patrick Nielsen.

“You would like to have seen those opportunities finished, but at the same token we were starting to create well and that was a great achievement given the quality of the opposition,” Callipari said.

Polovin expressed similar sentiments.

“Wheaton Warrenville South has a great team,” Polovin said. “Guy does a great job over there, but I felt with our team this year, we’re playing with anyone. We had some excellent chances in the first half and just missed here and there.”