Streamwood gets its revenge, regional title

Not long after the Streamwood boys soccer team was upset in last year's regional semifinal as the top seed at Millennium Field, the mantra all along was nothing more than redemption.

Seeing Larkin take home the regional hardware the Sabres believed was theirs was enough, but even when the critics stacked the deck against Streamwood this season, the team proved its doubters wrong by earning a top seed for the second straight year.

And after Saturday's 2-0 Class 3A Streamwood regional championship win over No. 3 Larkin, a two-time defending regional champ who had won 4 of its last 5 games, redemption is sweet. Not only can the Sabres (14-5-2) rejoice in the hard work in their second regional title in 3 years, they cemented a trip to DeKalb on Wednesday for a Class 3A sectional semifinal against Huntley at 7 p.m.

"I'm so proud of these guys. Again, the team we had this year, everyone said at the end of last year and the beginning of this year 'what are you going to do?' I think we silenced some of the negatives," Streamwood coach Matt Polovin said. "We've come from a team of a lot of nobodys to guys who play the game at a high level and have done it all season. It's just amazing to see."

There was no doubt Streamwood earned it and again used past experiences to its advantage. In their most recent game against Larkin (8-11-5), which ended in a 0-0 tie at Memorial Field back on September 23, the Sabres nailed 3 crossbars in the process. Getting off to a good start was key and midfielder Jasminko Dizdarevic quickly scored 5:03 into the game with a one-touch tap-in from the box off a ball from Edwin Rueda for a 1-0 lead. Then freshman Rafael Gil, off a Rueda left corner kick that hit a Royal first, fired a strike in the top right corner of the net for a 2-0 lead in the 15th minute.

"To be honest it was really important for us to get an early goal,' Dizdarevic said. "I was watching (Larkin) here when they won it (last year) and since my freshman year I've always wanted to win it. We have a better team from last year and we put so much hard work in during the summer to get here."

And Gil's goal that sealed it was like a tunnel according to him.

"I blasted it as much as (he could), the goalie barely moved as soon as I shot it, it was pretty much unstoppable," Gil said. "We just killed them after that goal, it was pretty much our game after the second goal. We relaxed, we didn't make mistakes and we pretty much had the game in our control."

Larkin never had control. The Riyals' 2 shots came in the second half. The defensive line of Gil, Mike Delaney, Aaron Villegas, Christian Balbino and Erie Ortiz completely shut down the Royals' attack, which managed 2 corners and 3 free kicks whereas Streamwood, which dominated possession, tallied 7 corners and free kicks each. Without a save, keeper Sergio Blanco upped his total to 9 shutouts.

"We didn't allow Larkin to throw anything at us," said Polovin, whose team outshot the Royals 7-2. "We were stopping anything they were trying to do. I didn't change my formation for anything. I did what I normally do and in the end we won and got the regional championship for ourselves."

And Larkin's pedigree of winning the last 5 years included four regional wins, one sectional win and a supersectional appearance for the first time last year couldn't make up for the errors this time out.

"Our quality just wasn't quite the same. We didn't pass well, there were a lot of things we just didn't do well, we didn't play the wind very well defensively in the first half and it cost us a lot," Royals' coach Ken Hall said. "You can't have a bad game when you're playing a team of that quality. There's no doubt about. We didn't bring our A game today even if we had our B game we're not going to beat them. They're too good of team."