Schaumburg's energy too much for Knights
By Dan Santaromita


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Schaumburg hosted Prospect to close out the Mid Suburban League season last fall and this year the teams opened the MSL season except the story was very different.

The two teams met in the same stadium in a rematch of last year’s MSL Cup, won by Prospect in penalties, but the similarities ended there. The host Saxons started conference play with a 3-0 win over the Knights.

Both teams graduated numerous key players from loaded senior classes a year ago. Prospect (0-2) lost 13 players and returns just seven players from last year’s roster while the Saxons (1-0-1) lost nine, including all three all-sectional honorees.

So the names are very different, but that doesn’t mean last year’s game wasn’t at least in the minds of both teams.

“I think for the guys that were here last year, but we lost a lot of guys,” Schaumburg coach Hamid Mehreioskouei said. “This game meant for us in regards to it’s our first conference game.”

“We knew it would be an emotional game for both teams coming in today with a lot of the history from last year and Schaumburg was certainly up to the task and had more energy and more emotion for this game than we did today,” Prospect coach Kurt Trenkle said.

One of Schaumburg’s returning starters, Kacper Wasilewski, scored in the second minute to kick-start the Saxons. He started the attack by making a run with the ball in Prospect’s half and then found Alan Santana, who returned the favor to set up Wasilewski for the opening score.

“I guess it did mean more, but these teams are totally different,” Wasilewski said. “This is a brand new season. I’m not even looking back on that one. That felt bad and it was in the back of my mind, but this feels better.”

The Saxons survived Prospect senior Robert Moskwa’s shot going off the post later in the first half to take the lead into halftime. Less than five minutes after the break Christian Huerta doubled the lead.

Prospect would hit the post again before Matt Shadel scored Schaumburg’s third with five minutes left. Shadel was the second sub to score in the match following Huerta’s effort.

“We’ve got players stepping up all over,” Mehreioskouei said. “We’ve got a young kid in Jessie Lopez, he was playing on the left side, he’s a freshman. The kid brings a different dynamic to the game, he’s dangerous 1v1, he’s unpredictable. Then you got our captain Kacper, our captain, who was just a workhorse tonight.

“This team reminds me of a college basketball team. We got role players that come in and we gotta work hard, we work as a team and we gotta stick to the system that we have. As long as everyone is on the same page and we work hard we’ll be successful. That’s what we did tonight.”

In net, Dan O’Connell and Marty Faleni combined for seven saves for the shutout.

Mehreioskouei plans to use more subs this year due to the team’s improved depth. While last year’s team had individual stars like all-state midfielder Joe Faleni, this year’s version is trying to play a more possession-oriented style instead of relying on a few players to create plays on their own.

“We definitely play in a different style,” Wasilewski said. “Last year we had a lot of individual great players. I feel like we’re trying to be more like a team this year, passing the ball better and all that stuff.”

“The difference between this year and last year is we were really athletic,” Mehreioskouei said. “This year we’ve got a lot of soccer players all over the place that understand the game. They like to play small ball and right now that’s what we’re changing. The way we played last year was pound it down people’s throat, this year we gotta keep it. We’re more tactical this year than we were last year.”

On the other side, Prospect already has more losses than it did all of last season. Avi Chitman and Ethan Graven saw the most time from that 20-1-2 squad, but fellow seniors Matt Wruskyj, Kennedy McNamara, Joe Tuczak, Matt Burikas and Curtis Glennon also return.

Graven, Glennon, Burikas and sophomore Alex Whiteman man a veteran defense that will be key to the Knights’ season.

“We have a lot of experience in the back line,” Trenkle said. “We did a pretty good job the other day, we did a pretty good job tonight in pieces, but it’s got to be 80 minutes worth. When you let balls fall in the box unchallenged that’s going to happen to us.”

The backline will protect junior Jack Cooney, tasked with replacing stud keeper Brad Reibel, who watched alongside the coaching staff. Cooney made seven saves against the Saxons.

McNamara will key the Knights’ attack along with seniors Brett Abraham and Ryan Srednicki.

“We know that our game is going to be different this year because we lost a lot of goal scoring,” Trenkle said. “Knowing that we still have people that can score goals, we’re just not going to get them in the bunches that we got them, we need to have a solid back line, we need to win a lot of 50-50 balls and put high pressure on.”

The Knights return Tuesday in the home opener against Rolling Meadows. Schaumburg meets its first MSL West foe the same day at Palatine.