Marty Faleni makes all the stops for Schaumburg
He’s a keeper — in the fall and in the spring.
Schaumburg junior Marty Faleni, a goalkeeper for the Saxons’ soccer team in the fall, has been pretty adept at stopping wet shots as a rookie goalkeeper for the school’s boys water polo team.
Faleni stymied shot after shot Friday in a pair of victories at the Saxon Invite in the home water. Schaumburg beat York 10-7 and Libertyville 10-6 in the first day of the two-day event.
Faleni was a JV field water polo player a year ago and started to prepare for this spring’s keeper duties during the middle of his swim season in the winter.
“He’s a natural athlete,” said Saxons senior Randy Carr, who scored 3 of Schaumburg’s first 4 goals in the Libertyville game and finished with a team-high 4.
Carr has one of the hardest shots around.
Just ask Faleni, who has to face Carr’s wicked fast balls in practices.
But in practices Faleni sometimes yells, “Throw it harder!”
Faleni and the stout defenders in front of him blanked York in the first half Friday morning. Friday afternoon Libertyville tallied only 1 goal against the hosts in the first half.
“We pride ourselves on defense,” said Saxons coach Brian Ragano, who noted his squad’s leading scorer (Carr) is an even better player defensively.
Schaumburg (5-3) was one of two teams at the eight-team invite to finish the day with a 2-0 record, even though it was without two starters and many of the Saxons either had the flu or had recovered from it.Lindberg (Mo.) also won twice Friday.
Libertyville, York, Wheeling and St. Charles East each split two games. Mundelein and Lafayette (Mo.) went 0-2.
Down 6-1 to Schaumburg after two quarters in Friday’s finale, Libertyville (6-4) battled back in the final 12 minutes, tallying 3 of the first 4 goals in the third quarter.
The Wildcats trailed 8-5 at 1:03 of the third quarter and 9-6 at 3:57 of the fourth quarter.
“That pleased me; that was comforting to see,” Libertyville coach Ivan Munoz said of his club’s effort in the second half “But what hurt was what we did in man-up situations (3-for-7).”
Tommy Keefe and Adam King each scored 2 goals for Libertyville. Schaumburg’s Matt McMullen and Marty Kwiatowski also netted 2 goals apiece. The Saxons’ Patrick Halpin came up big on defense, especially late in the fourth quarter.
In earlier games, Keefe tossed in 6 goals while teammate Alex Wang had 3 in Libertyville’s 12-5 defeat of Lafayette; Kwiatowski’s 3 goals paced Schaumburg in a 10-7 win over York, which got 5 goals from Alex Waldherr; Wheeling’s Austin Idhe had 5 goals and teammate Ben Reiff 4 in a 13-2 defeat of Mundelein; St. Charles East’s Shaun Seuschek finished with 3 goals in a 7-5 loss to Lindberg and contributed 2 in a 9-7 win over Lafayette; Waldherr and Patrick McKenna struck for 3 goals each in York’s 7-3 defeat of Wheeling; and Mundelein’s Jason Rehor scored 3 goals in an 8-6 loss to Lindbergh.
“We did some good things (against Lindbergh),” Mundelein coach Rahul Sethna said after his young Mustangs slipped to 1-10. “It was probably our best shooting-percentage game of the season, and I liked the way we made adjustments. There were positives.
“But we have to take better care of the ball than we have been because we have to be more of a possession team this year.”
Each team will play two more games today. The scheduled games: Schaumburg vs. St. Charles East at 8 a.m.; Libertyville vs. Wheeling at 8:50 a.m.; York vs. Lindbergh at 9:40 a.m.; Mundelein vs. Lafayette at 10:30 a.m.; St. Charles East vs. Wheeling at 11:20 a.m.; Libertyville vs. Lindbergh at 12:10 p.m.; York vs. Lafayette at 1 p.m.; and Schaumburg vs. Mundelein at 1:50 p.m.