Boys soccer: Conant hangs on, denies Willowbrook

It wasn't easy for No. 5 seed Conant on Tuesday.

But eventually the Cougars earned a hard-fought 2-0 victory over Willowbrook to book a spot opposite No. 4 seed Wheaton Academy (15-1-3) in Saturday's Class 3A boys soccer regional final at Elk Grove.

Cougars outside-back Michael Rizzo opened the scoring in the sixth minute when he converted his spot kick. Rizzo then provided an assist on Nico Scimeca's superb 24th-minute finish.

Then Rizzo, backline mate Matt Biernat and keeper Piotr Pyz managed to hold off a revved-up attack by Willowbrook (8-9-0), which was hoping to extend the career of coach Peter Ginter at least one more day.

"This was my last game, but the guys played as hard as they could for 80 minutes, leaving everything they had out there, which made me very proud of each and every one of them," said Ginter, who made sure to give all of his players a proper send-off before leaving Robert E. Haskell Stadium after the match.

"They were a very good opponent," said Rizzo, who left little doubt with his PK attempt, set up when Harris Dibek was hauled down in the box after a nicely played sequence with Noah Ozbag. "We played really well in the first half, but didn't finish some really good chances. And after we got a little careless with some bad fouls, which led to a few yellow cards, we let a good team stay close. When we wore down in the last 15 minutes, we had to hold on to get the win to advance."

The Cougars (12-7-0) were successful playing over the top with balls out of the back from Rizzo and Biernat. When they connected with target players Dibek, Ozbag, Scimeca and Sota Ono, it forced Willowbrook to defend ever deeper.

"Their speed up top really surprised us, and those two mistakes of ours in the first half cost us 2 goals," said Ginter. "But we corrected that at the break, went to a 4-3-3, and I thought had most of the run of play in the second half."

Scimeca got into his run before Rizzo's early ball was delivered from the back, and the extra steps the senior had on the Warriors' defense made it easier for him to collect and finish his angled shot from the right side.

Willowbrook had plenty of the possession after the break, and it attacking game was quite ambitious, with Benny Heredia running the show from midfield and Saul Hernandez and Patrick Foley providing plenty of nervous moments for the Cougars coach Jason Franco.

"We put ourselves under a tremendous amount of pressure with our lack of composure and our poor decision-making," said Franco. "If we don't clean those types of things up when we play Wheaton Academy, it's going to be a long afternoon."

Pyz stubbornly refused a long-drive from Miguel Correa at 44 minutes, in the first of a handful of quality stops from the sophomore. He commanded his box fearlessly despite taking a beating on nearly every 50-50 ball the Warriors sent into the area.

A Michael Pavlik free kick, followed by another by Jesus Nava and finally an attempt on frame by Arvin Chavez in the final seven minutes were denied as Willowbrook ran out of time.

"We had our opportunities to get back even," said Ginter. "But we couldn't finish them. Credit to Conant - they played well in the first half, got some great work by their keeper and back line to get the win and advance."