Second-half surge lifts Benet past Carmel

Photos courtesy of John Hannon

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By Gary Larsen

Carmel coach John Halloran was happy with the gritty effort his side showed on Monday, and through 40 minutes the Corsairs show solid flashes of the possession soccer they love to play.

But then Benet imposed its will. A Redwings-controlled second half culminated in a Benjamin Kucera goal at 65 minutes, in a hard-fought East Suburban Catholic Conference game in Mundelein.

“They were fantastic in the second half,” Halloran said of Benet. “They moved the ball around, their four in the middle were great all night, and they took care of everything we put long. It could have been 4-0 or 5-0. You can’t take anything away from them. They’re just a good, solid team.”

The Redwings went into Monday’s game with vengeance on their minds.

“Carmel’s a hard team. Last year they beat us (1-0) so we wanted to come out here and prove something,” Benet defender Dan Coleman said. “So it’s a great way to start conference off.”

Carmel (4-3-2, 1-1 in ESCC play) weathered a pair of good scoring changes early on. Benet (4-3-1, 1-0) saw Brad Bozych fire right at Carmel keeper Steve Sliwa from close range, when Hunter Miller sprang him with a through-ball just one minute into play.

Benet’s Brendon Gesior sent a chance wide at 3 minutes, and Benet headed a Miller corner kick feed high at 9 minutes. Kucera also headed a DalSanto free kick high before the quarter-hour mark.

Sliwa made the save of the game at 24 minutes, when Miller turned the corner on the right side and took a touch up the endline before cutting it back and firing a left-footed shot that sent Sliwa diving to make the stop.

But even though Benet had the better scoring chances, Carmel was fighting well to establish its possession game through 40 minutes. With Peter Kolb, Ian Heinrich, and Mike Scheer in the middle and Gabe Brouilette and Mike Reed on the outside, the Corsairs found feet and kept the ball on Benet’s half for good stretches of play.

“We have possession players from front to back, so when we can knock it around and find space we do real well,” Halloran said. “We don’t’ do as well when we’re kicking it long. We can’t do that this year.”

Carmel struggled to find a dangerous shot, however, as a backline led by Coleman, James Colletti, Kyle Kenagy, and Robert Tomecek protected keeper Kyle DalSanto well.

“We should have gotten a goal or two in the first five minutes, and then we kind of let them take over,” Coleman said. “At halftime we realized that we could put this team away, and we came out hard and fast in the second half. For the majority of the second half, we were pressing (in the final third).”

Miller, Gesior, Kucera, Bozych, Thomas Mojica, and Patrick Nemetz keyed a second-half attack for Benet that played at another level.

“The second half looked great. Just a totally different team,” Benet coach Sean Wesley said. “We had to get used to the field. It’s narrow and fast, and we kept turning into the pressure and giving the ball away before things could get started. In the second half we didn’t do that as much and it started opening up the game and made us a little more dangerous.”

The Corsairs were forced to resort to a style of play that they’re never happy to embrace.

“They were really athletic and they had a lot of speed up top, so that was hard to deal with,” Kolb said. “We needed to hold the ball more. We got more into a kicking match, which, with our athleticism, isn’t the best thing. We got away from (possession) in the second half, which we need to work on a little more. Even in the games we’ve lost, we’ve kept the ball for the majority of the game -- except for this game, obviously.”

Sliwa and his backline of Justin Gibbons, Jeremy Jenich, and Justin Andreasik stayed strong in the face of Benet’s pressure, keeping the game scoreless to its 65th minute.

It’s not a place that Kucera is all that familiar with – a wide-open net staring him in the face and a game-winning shot on his foot. But the defender-by-trade is acclimating well to an attacking role, and after he deked a defender and then Sliwa he calmly deposited the game’s lone goal.

“I kind of peeled away from (a defender) without him seeing me, and I just got lucky that Hunter hit a perfect cross to me,” Kucera said. “The defender tried to header it and when he realized I was behind him, it was too late.

“At that point I was pretty excited so I just wanted to make sure I took a nice, easy touch.”

Carmel pushed forward for a tying goal but DalSanto and his backline held firm.
 
“Colletti and I just started playing in the back so we had some adjustments to make, but I think we’re on the right path,” Coleman said. “I can’t say enough about Colletti. He wins every head ball.”

Colletti has also provided one of his coach’s favorite storylines in 2011.

“Colletti wasn’t a starter – he wasn’t even in our top twenty kids to start the year,” Wesley said. “And now he’s our rock back there, winning every fifty-fifty ball. He showed that he wanted it more than anyone, and I love that story. And then a freshman (Kyle Kenagy) and Robert (Tomecek), who is a junior and never played zonal in back, they’re both doing a nice job. (Midfielder) Thomas Mojica was also a rock for us tonight. Whenever we can break up their attack before it’s in our defensive third, we’re going to be pretty dangerous.”

Miller was a creative force in the second half for Benet and Kucera – who is fast-proving his worth as an attacking player – was happy with the team-wide effort.

“I was proud of all of our guys, including the guys that came in off the bench,” Kucera said. “They came on and did exactly what the guy on the field before them was doing, knew exactly what was happening, and they stayed with the tempo – one, two touches, and especially on a tight field like this I thought we used that to our advantage.”

Despite the loss, the Corsairs have given Halloran a lunch-bucket effort since the season’s start, and Monday’s effort was no different.

“I liked that we worked hard,” Halloran said. “That’s one of the things that I wanted us to do better this year, and we’ve been better than I hoped in terms of work rate. Our guys worked real hard, stepped really well, and all of their second chances were half-looks that we blocked a lot, and kept pressure off our goalie.”

The imminent return of attacking player TJ Poll figures to help find dangerous shots for a Corsairs team that will continue to fine-tune its possession game.

“Peter (Kolb) is a guy who has been fantastic for us all year and given us great leadership,” Halloran said. “He’s a junior captain, which is pretty rare in our program. He’s non-stop chatter and he works his butt off, plays physical, and he’s smart. He has a tremendous soccer IQ.

“I thought Jeremy Jenich played well, too. He’s a sophomore playing sweeper against Benet, and that’s a big game to jump into but I thought he handled himself really well back there.

“I’m just glad we work hard. If you have talent and don’t work hard, as a coach you’re miserable. Even if you’re winning games, you’re miserable. But we’ve had two 1-0 losses to really good teams and we’ve battled hard for eighty minutes, against teams that were a little bit bigger and faster than us.”