Bellmer leads WW South to rivalry win

Wheaton Warrenville South scored 3 unanswered goals and downed rival Wheaton North 3-1 in Thursday's DuPage Valley Conference match.

Andrew Bellmer led the Tigers with a pair of goals and an assist. Bellmer has now contributed to 22 scores (11 assists, 11 goals) while the team has only yielded 8 goals through 13 games.

"He just has great awareness and sense of where he needs to be," Tigers coach Guy Callipari said. "We don't necessarily need to play through him all the time. We have a lot of other people that we do that with to keep the other team honest."

With many fourth-year players, the Tigers continue to jell while Bellmer's offensive numbers are soaring

"With 13 returning players we know where everyone's making their runs," Bellmer said. "It takes 11 guys to make a goal and only takes one to finish it. It's definitely the other guys. Credit them."

Wheaton North (3-4-1, 1-2) started out strongly when senior Pat Langan followed Jacques Ntahoturi's shot and put the rebound in to put the Falcons ahead 1-0 at 19:17 in the first half. The Falcons kept the ball in the air and used their speed and spacing to control momentum. Unfortunately for the hosts, it wouldn't last.

"If I could've ended the game after about 25 minutes I would have," Falcons coach Bryce Cann said. "We had a real solid start to the game and had three real good opportunities to put the ball in the net and we capitalized on one."

Wheaton Warrenville South (11-1-1, 2-0) made the Falcons pay for their missed opportunities. The Tigers knotted the score at 1-1 at 5:24 in the opening half when Ricardo Munguia dribbled toward the right before finding Bellmer, who hammered it home. The score remained tied until the 57th minute when the Tigers took the lead on Joseph Bianucci's goal that appeared close to being an offside violation.

"We had some good passing coming up field and we kept the ball on the ground, which was key to the play," Bianucci said. "Drew (Bellmer) took it out and had a nice feed and I was able to get my head up and the goalie was heading right and I just poked it to the left."

"The bottom line, we're going to have to defend him anyway," Cann said. "It's a breakdown on our part, and those are things we have to work through."

Before the Falcons knew what hit them, the Tigers scored again as Bellmer found the back of net 68 seconds later.

"We kept the ball on the ground and controlled possession through midfield," Tigers defender Matt Krieger said. "Our defense stood strong, got the ball to the offense and we never looked back."