Riordan's shot fires Bartlett past South Elgin

Tim Riordan's biggest weakness became Bartlett's strongest asset Tuesday night against rival South Elgin, and its timing was simply impeccable.

When forward AJ Santori lofted a throw from the right of the box to a charging Riordan up the middle, all the junior midfielder could do was connect with his weaker foot, his right. Who knows what would have happened if he struck with his stronger left, but Riordan's shot from 20 yards out with his bad foot sailed high into the net with 1:15 left in the match for the game-winner in the Hawks' 2-1 Upstate Eight Valley win at Millennium Field in Streamwood.

"I got a lucky shot off my right foot and it went in. I'm not kidding myself," Riordan said. "My teammates picked me up on their back and I heard my fans cheering from my school. South Elgin fans were quiet for the first time of the game."

Riordan also assisted on Tony Estanislao's goal in the 51st minute that gave the Hawks (2-4, 1-1) a 1-0 lead early in the second half. After being winless in their first 4 games, the Hawks have now won 2 straight, and the junior's heroics capped a very physical and heated game between the Elgin Area District U-46 schools that saw two yellow cards from Bartlett and a red from Isaac Perez, which forced South Elgin (1-1-2, 0-1) to roll with 9 players for the final 38 minutes.

"Obviously, that worked in our favor," Bartlett coach Ben Beary said. "Got to hand it to South Elgin, they played with a lot of intensity, they connected twice as many passes as we did. That's the first team this year that's come to close to our possession totals in the first half - and they doubled it."

Even with the disadvantage, Jose Gomez was able to cross a boot from the left corner of the box into the upper right corner of the net to even things up just 14 seconds after Estanislao's goal. Bartlett's odd-man advantage hurt the Storm in the long run as it didn't get any shots on goal thereafter.

"When you're down a player you can't really feel that confident, honestly," said South Elgin coach Nate Bowman. "That's what happens when you're down a man, you can't relax. Hope for something lucky."

Instead it was Bartlett, which also tightened things up defensively in the second half. The Storm booted 7 shots on goal in the first half as Sebastian Heretyk nailed the post in the first minute of the game and had a shot go wide minutes later. Juan Carlos Lujan also saw a shot break wide of the right post and Kristoph Mikhail had a key opportunity on a missed slide attempt 11 minutes in. The Hawks later edged the Storm 13-9 overall in shots while also coming away with an 8-0 edge on corner kicks.

"(South Elgin) really stepped up that pressure and it caught us by surprise but we were able to manage to get through it," Hawks' defensemen Zane Kaiser said. "A quick one-second lapse and a lucky chance for them but for the rest of the game we were able to step up that pressure and capitalize on those tackles. We had to communicate to keep that back line intact and hold them down."