Wheaton Academy keeps rolling
Elias McCloud isn't afraid to yell at senior Jacob Kapitaniuk.
If the Wheaton Academy junior sees a chance to score, he's going to let his elder boys soccer teammate know. And he's going to do it loudly.
McCloud certainly caught Kapitaniuk's attention with a little less than 10 minutes remaining in Thursday's nonconference game at Wheaton Academy. After doing so Kapitaniuk delivered a perfect pass to McCloud, who found an opening to score the game-winner in a hard-fought 1-0 victory.
"(Kapitaniuk) had the ball at the left and he always picks his head up so I started screaming at him," McCloud said. "I was a little louder than usual and he picked his head up and played me the ball. I took a touch past a defender, saw an opening and hit it in."
Wheaton Academy (6-0-1) has beaten both Wheaton North and Wheaton Warrenville South this season. It's quite an achievement for this early in the season and it didn't come easily on Thursday.
"I thought we kept the ball really well and controlled the middle third to create a lot of chances," Warriors coach Jeff Brooke said. "I imagine we'll run into that style of play again where they send a few more numbers in and we'll have to find a way to combine in a quicker fashion to put the ball away."
Wheaton North (1-5-1) really made things difficult for the Warriors, focusing especially on limiting forward Ty Seager. Senior defender Nicholas Bibergal had a lot to do with it.
"You can't take him out of the game, but we tried to neutralize him," Falcons coach Rob Stassen said. "He's one of the best players, if not the best player, in the state and I thought our guys did a fantastic job. I don't think he really touched the ball, apart from when he brought it up from his own 20(-yard) line. Nico really did a phenomenal job."
The Falcons didn't fold easily after surrendering the goal to McCloud, but their remaining chances really didn't pose much of a threat either.
Senior Joe Duncan had a decent look just outside of the penalty box with 7:20 remaining but shot too high. The Falcons also earned a corner kick with about four minutes left, but no scoring chance materialized, and the Warriors cleared the ball out of harm's way.
"That was the best game of soccer I've seen in a long time," Stassen said. "(Wheaton Academy) are absolutely fantastic and we played with them. Our ball movement wasn't great today, but that wasn't the focus. Our focus was to shut them down as much as we could."