Prospect tops Schaumburg for MSL Cup
Prospect is atop Mid-Suburban League boys soccer.
Getting there sure wasn’t easy, though.
Goalkeeper Brad Reibel’s late heroics in shootout, and the Knights’ sheer determination to overcome playing a man down for 65 minutes, helped Prospect to its first league championship in a 2-1 victory over host Schaumburg on Thursday night in the 34th annual MSL Cup at Gary Scholz Stadium.
When it proved impossible to separate the teams after 100 minutes, the match was settled by penalties. Reibel kept his club alive until Richard Lenke provided the winner when he thumped his spot kick into the back of the net to begin a wild celebration. Lenke raced off the pitch and climbed over the fence to meet a big crowd which had cheered Prospect from the opening whistle right up until Lenke’s fifth-round conversion.
“I was so overcome at what had just had happened that all I could think of was to run over to our fans up in the bleachers,” said Lenke, who along with teammates Reibel and Patryk Ruta were the only holdovers from the team which two years ago was beaten 5-1 by Palatine.
“I am not surprised at all that this game ended up going to PKs,” said relieved Prospect coach Kurt Trenkle, whose players weathered a first-half storm in which the Saxons (12-4-1) controlled play.
The Knights’ Matt Burikas was shown a quick red card for his tackle of Saxons standout Jake Savino, forcing the visitors to play with 10 men the rest of the regulation, and into both 10-minute extra sessions.
The crowd enjoyed a thrilling ride in the first quarter hour, as the MSL West champion Saxons played through Savino as well as Joey Faleni, John Franco, Alan Santana, and later, sophomore Kristian Pawlikowski. The Knights’ counter-attacking found Lenke and Bill Cooney, the area’s leading goal scorer (20 goals), and on occcasion Ruta, to keep the Saxons wary in their own end.
“Prospect has some highly skilled and dangerous players, and after they settled in midway through the second half, they became dangerous once again, and had their chances against us as well,” said Saxons coach Hamid Mehreioskouei. “We had some great chances as well, especially early on, but (Reibel) was just amazing for them tonight and came up with huge saves when his team needed him to.”
Drew Simons’ angled shot from the right side forced the senior into a save situation just four minutes into the match. With the hosts’ confidence on the rise, the Knights scored on the counter as Alex Schnepf and Cooney swiftly came up the right flank and found an unmarked Lenke, who headed past keeper Ben Beard.
The Saxons responded as they have all season and spent most of the next quarter-hour in the Knights’ end, when an acrobatic Savino somehow twisted his body into a position where he could redirect a Santana helper past Reibel at 21 minutes.
After the equalizer, the Saxons grew more menacing with each minute. Then came the red card — Reibel stopped Savino’s spot kick to keep things even at 35 minutes. But for the next 10 minutes, the Knights (17-0-2) were forced to defend more than they would have liked.
“I am not sure how we kept them out of our net, but I (do) know that the half came at a good time for us, and probably not a good time for Hamid’s team, which was building so much momentum that it seemed like only a matter of time before they would score on us,” said Trenkle.
Trenkle and his staff made a series of winning tactical moves after the break, namely moving Lenke up as the lone striker and pushing Cooney back to midfield to help with possession and to defend alongside Ruta, Schnepf and Ihor Lehkiv. The move also helped keep fresh legs on the pitch for Prospect as the Knights leaned heavily on the backline of Conor O’Leary, Ethan Craven and Johnny Fredericks.
“We were able to create in the second half, and came close on several of our chances, but we didn’t hold the ball as well as we did in the first half and we weren’t as sharp as we were (earlier),” said Mehreioskouei. “And we just didn’t keep up the pressure like we’ve done all season long, but credit Prospect for some of that. They didn’t give up, and they worked so hard in the second half.”
After some fast-paced OT periods, the match went into shootout, where the Knights went up 2-1 when Cooney and Schnepf converted with ease and Reibel took what looked like a conversion from Franco out of the back of the net when he went into full extension to his left and, with his trailing right foot and leg, turned away Franco’s driving shot.
“When Brad made that save in regulation on (Schaumburg’s) PK, I knew then we would win, and his unbelievable save in shootout made us all think so,” said Lenke.
Mike Chase and Savino went upper 90 to pull the Saxons even at 3-3, but Lenke easily stroked the winning shot past Beard, who guessed one way but could only look back to watch the senior score.
“There aren’t any words to describe how I feel right now,” said Reibel, “and I am not sure I’ll have anything else to say later, except ‘This is all so amazing.’ ”