Chicagoland Soccer

Indians get two from Bever, tie Plainfield East
By Bill Stone

Minooka senior central defender AJ Bever needed to come out during both halves of Tuesday’s soccer game at Plainfield East because of a bad ankle.

But he certainly wasn’t out for long.

“Each time I slide tackled with my left foot, the (other player) caught it, and it bent back more,” Bever said. “It hurt more and more each time, but my coach (Chris Brolley) needed me out there so I went out there and played.”

Bever made the most of his roughly 56 minutes of playing time. He scored both of the Indians’ goals with headers off right-side corner kicks by Joe Koeing and helped the defense withstand a barrage of shots just enough to earn a 2-2 tie in Plainfield in the second round of the Lemont Tournament.

Minooka (1-2-1) never trailed and nearly pulled out the victory until Ryan Olans scored his second goal for the Bengals (1-0-2) with 6 minutes, 23 seconds left in regulation. There is no overtime for tournament pool play.

“I was hoping we wouldn’t lose a game in a last couple of minutes, but you want them to be fighting and battling. Even though they’re a little upset with calls and the physicality of the game, we’re going to learn from this,” Brolley said. “When you tie games this early in the season, hopefully you can build on it, and later in the season you’re winning those games, winning postseason games. You know how to close a game. I hope we learn how to close a game.”

The Southwest Prairie Conference rivals displayed plenty of intensity, and there’s more to come. They are playing each other three times during the regular season for the third year in a row.

They meet again Sept. 8 at the Bolingbrook Tournament and Sept. 20 in Plainfield in their game that counts in the SPC standings. Minooka won two of last year’s meetings, including 3-2 in the conference game.

“It’s always a good battle. It’s always a good contest. It’s always a pretty even score. We knew what we were getting into,” Brolley said.

“It seems like each year it just gets tougher and tougher. Each year people have bones to pick from the years before,” Bever said.

Plainfield East led 22-13 in shots (12-7 in shots on goal) and kept on coming after Bever’s goal put the Indians ahead 2-1 with 18:18 remaining. Olans scored after Oscar Yepez stole the ball past midfield and pushed it upfield, where Olans got control of the ball to the left side of the goal after the Indians couldn’t clear.

The final result was nearly as tough to swallow as the Indians’ 5-3 loss to East Aurora in Saturday’s tournament opener after leading 3-2.

“Well, the two biggest mistakes in soccer are you don’t play with the ball in the middle of the field late in the game, and you don’t mark up on a kick. Those two things kill you,” Brolley said. “But we fixed some things from the last game.”

Injuries don’t help, either. Besides Bever, junior Alec Polaine, the other central defender, wasn’t at 100 percent. Normally a midfielder, Polaine is the replacement for senior Adam Wilke, who has missed the past two games with a ligament injury and is expected to be out another two weeks. Still, Polaine joined Bever in making many key stops in the middle with slides or standing tall to control the ball.

Senior goalie Ayhan Ozgen (10 saves), junior Mauro Medina, sophomore Pat Fox and juniors reserves Nick Miller and Juan Rojas also saw significant action for a defensive line that pulled off eight offsides traps.

“Normally, we don’t sub that much (on defense),” Brolley said. “(Bever) wanted to get out, so we got him out and got him back in when we could.”

One of few returning starters from last season, Bever is easy to notice. At 6-foot-4, he towers over most players. He now wears bright yellow spikes that he just purchased days ago.

Before Bever came out the first time, he rocketed a header from the middle of the box for the game’s first goal with 29:13 left in the first half. Koenig’s corner kick almost seemed to be perfectly placed.

Bever was more scrutinized from then on, but even so, he stayed on the far post and put his head down to re-direct Koenig’s corner kick into the opposite corner of the net for his second goal. They’re Bever’s first goals of the season.

“We’ve been playing together for about eight years now so we know each other and the way we play really well,” Bever said. “I went up and just nailed them with my head and just had my eyes closed, too. It just went in. I think it’s mainly luck, a lot of it is luck. It felt really good.”

Minooka led 5-4 in corner kicks and had four in the second half. The one that set up the second goal came after immediately after a Koenig corner kick was headed out over the goal line. With 16 minutes left, the Indians got another chance when senior Mo Esquivel’s blast from 30 yards out was pushed over the net by goalie Brandon Day but couldn’t capitalize.

Bever and senior tri-captains Esquivel, Koenig and Craig Phillips are among just a handful of returning Minooka starters. Koenig missed the final 3:19 of Tuesday’s game after receiving his second yellow card in a 7 1/2-minute span.

Esquivel scored five of the Indians’ six goals over their first three games, which began with a 6-1 loss at Naperville Central Aug. 21 followed by a 2-1 victory at Normal West Aug. 22. Koenig also had a goal and assist, and Sergio Reyes, Giacomo Raimondi and Rojas also provided assists.

Reyes nearly scored with just less than 33 minutes left in the first half Tuesday, but his diagonal shot rolled wide of the left post. Reyes exploited a quick sidelines throw-in from Matt Blackmore following the head official overruling the call of the sidelines official.

Still, the quickest turn of events came in the first 30 seconds. Olans rapidly got the ball to Mike Brazinski, who cut back on a defender and took a point-blank shot stopped by Ozgen.

With 17:45 left in the first half, the Bengals’ Dominick Sullivan got the ball uncontested down right wing off a free kick, but Ozgen thwarted that one-on-one. Ozgen had nearly stopped Olans’ open shot minutes earlier, but the ball deflected off him and trickled over the goal line just before he could stop it.

Brolley said a field with taller natural grass helped to slow the game, but Plainfield East got 15 shots in the second half (8 on goal) with five shots in the final 12 minutes.

“(To see better) fitness and to close a game out, that’s what I’d like right now,” Brolley said. “You can only take so much. I could see our fitness (waning) just a little bit. We were not getting all the way back. The more chances you get. . .eventually they’re going to score.”

While Minooka is 0-1-1 in tournament play, Plainfield East is 0-0-2 with a 1-1 tie against Riverside-Brookfield Tuesday. In Thursday’s final pool round, Minooka plays host to R-B and Plainfield East meets East Aurora. Saturday’s final round will be between the corresponding finishers from the two pools.

“Every time we play Chris and Minooka, it’s a dogfight. He has a really good program and good kids,” Plainfield East coach Walter Flores said.

“I told our boys we had six clear chances in the second half that we should have finished, but that’s the game of soccer. Sometimes the ball is going to bounce your way. Sometimes it’s not. But the thing about the boys is they never give up. Their persistency paid off at the end. I think it’s a fair score. They played well, too. We’re not going to take anything away from Minooka. They’re a great group of kids.”